This year's edition of the oldest and most important music festival in Serbia opens with a concert by the famous Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel with the Virtuosi Festival Orchestra, conductor Bojan Suđić and guest Sofija Petrović, soprano, on 1 November at the Kolarac Endowment (8 p.m.). The programme includes the most beautiful songs from the operas of Richard Wagner (‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’, ‘Tristan und Isolde’, ‘Die Walküre’), Ludwig van Beethoven (‘Fidelio’), Arrigo Boitо (‘Mefistofele’), Giuseppe Verdi (‘Macbeth’), George Gershwin (‘Porgy and Bess’), as well as from the musicals ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, ‘Cats’, ‘Camelot’ and ‘Les Misérables’.

Bryn Terfel is one of the leading opera singers and ‘Wagnerians’ today. He is the winner of numerous awards, including the Grammy, Classical Brit and Gramophone Award, with a discography encompassing operas by Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, and more than fifteen solo albums. He was also made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to Opera in 2003, was awarded the Queen's Medal for Music in 2006 and received a knighthood for his service to music in 2017. In Austria, he was honoured with the title of Kammersänger for his services to the Wiener Staatsoper, the highest honor given to distinguished singers of opera and classical music.

He made his international operatic debut in 1991 at the Royal Theatre of La Monnaie in Brussels. In the same year, he made his American debut (as Figaro) with the Santa Fe Opera. His most notable roles during his illustrious career include Mephisto (‘Faust’), Leporello (‘Don Giovanni’), Jochanaan (‘Saloma’), Gianni Schicchi, Nick Shadow (‘The Rake's Progress’), Wolfram (‘Tannhäuser’), Balstrode (‘Peter Grimes’) and Four Villains (‘The Tales of Hoffmann’, French: ‘Les contes d' Hoffmann’), among many others. ‘His Wotan, Sachs, Scarpia, are not merely dramatic characters, but forces of nature’ (Tom Service, BBC Music Magazine).   

This remarkable artist marked his 50th birthday and twenty-five years in the profession with a special one-off Gala Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, presented by Hollywood star Michael Sheen. The celebrations continued at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre.

Recent performances include Balstrode for the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Holländer (‘Der fliegende Holländer’) for the Wiener Staatsoper and the ABAO Bilbao Opera, Falstaff for Zürich Opera, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Münich and the Grange Park Opera, Scarpia (‘Tosca’) for the Opéra national de Paris (Paris Opera) and the Opera Națională București (Romanian National Opera, Bucharest), Don Pizarro (‘Fidelio’) at the Schloßberg, Sweeney Todd for Zürich Opera and Boris Godunov for the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Opera House.

Terfel’s concert performances highlights range from the opening ceremony of the Wales Millennium Centre, where he appeared as Scarpia in a special concert performance of the opera ‘Tosca’ with the Welsh National Opera Ensemble, the BBC Last Night of the Proms and the Royal Variety Show to a Gala Concert with Andrea Bocelli in Central Park, New York and curating a special Christmas concert and live international stream for the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Met Stars Live in Concert’ series from Brecon Cathedral, Wales. Recent performances include a series of concerts with the Orchestre National de Bretagne (Brittany Symphony Orchestra) in Rennes and Paris, celebrating 250 years since Beethoven’s birth with orchestral arrangements of Beethoven’s Celtic Songs.  

Tickets for concerts at the 54th BEMUS can be purchased at the ticket office of the Ilija M. Kolarac Endowment, the Belgrade Philharmonic and via the tickets.rs website.

BEMUS is realized by the Belgrade Festivals Centre (CEBEF), under the auspices of the City of Belgrade – Secretariat for Culture and with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia.