Following her successful interpretation of the one-act ballet The Firebird in an evening
dedicated to Igor Stravinsky, the award-winning and acclaimed choreographer Maša
Kolar will bring to the stage a new choreographic interpretation of two works, The Gingerbread
Heart and Nonice, which fuse Croatian tradition with contemporary expression.
The Gingerbread Heart premiered on 17 June 1924 at the Croatian National Theatre
in Zagreb. Created in collaboration between composer Krešimir Baranović and choreographer
Margarita Froman, prima ballerina of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and a member
of the Ballets Russes, the work holds a particularly important place in the history of
Croatian ballet. It is one of the early examples of so-called national ballets created during
the formative period of dance’s professionalisation as an autonomous art form, expressed
through music, movement, visual design and themes rooted in Croatian folk heritage.
The ballet’s action unfolds in a space between reality and dream, where the appearance
of an enchanted gingerbread heart sets in motion a series of unusual events. On the stage
of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, as well as in many other theatres across the
region, The Gingerbread Heart remained in the repertoire for almost sixty-four years.
In the 2026/2027 season, this seminal original work of Croatian ballet, which has left a
lasting mark on its history, will return to the Zagreb stage.
In Nonice, set to music by Tena Novak Vincek, choreographer Maša Kolar portrays
the everyday lives of women from Croatia’s coastal regions through gesture and sharply
articulated physical expression, revealing both the hardships of their daily existence and
the resilient spirit that sustains them. Through the rhythms of work, small rituals and
inevitable gossip, the performance evokes the weight of their lives, but also a humour
imbued with irony. The lives of these women, in which tragedy and joy are inextricably
intertwined, open up a stage world filled with warmth, humour and vitality.
These two ballets bring to life Croatian traditions from different temporal and
aesthetic perspectives, not as a reconstruction of the past, but as its contemporary, living
resonance.