„I DID NOT KNOW THAT MATICA SRPSKA IS OWNED BY THE SNS“: Opera singer banned from performing for singing at a protest!

Opera singer Katarina Jovanović sang for citizens at a protest in front of the Rectorate last night; today, the director of Matica Srpska banned her performance as a punishment.

While the protest in front of the rectorate was ongoing last night, opera singer Katarina Jovanović sang a song dedicated to the President of Serbia together with a group of people gathered there, and today she was informed that her concert at Matica Srpska has been canceled.

As she says, the explanation arrived today at 2:27 PM.

„I was preparing to leave for Novi Sad and I sent an email to Matica Srpska informing them that my pianist had fallen ill and that colleague Zorka Milivojević would perform with me instead. I had to write that to them so there wouldn’t be any problems. Then suddenly an email arrived in which I saw them informing me that the concert was canceled and they sent some attachment that I couldn’t open; I asked them to send it to me, but they didn’t. I found it later on the website; that statement is a confrontation with someone who does not want the SNS to be in power, and that is me—I think the time of the SNS government has passed, which is what I sang in a satirical song last night. It is very interesting to me, that absence of any capacity to hear even a joke at one’s own expense, let alone anything else,“ she says.

Actually, she adds, it is amusing to her.

„Because I didn’t know what the ownership structure of Matica Srpska was; I didn’t know that there was some ownership by the SNS or the president over Matica; had I known that, I simply might not have even sung there,“ she says.

As she says, she has been on an „artistic blacklist for a very long time.“

„Partly in ’96, ’97, when I was a student. That’s when I left the country; I returned after a long time and started working at the Faculty of Music Arts, where I have been working for 18 years and where I recently became a full professor. I was the director of the opera at the National Theatre in Belgrade just before the SNS came to power; in artistic institutions, the change is felt earlier. I resigned because I couldn’t deal with the primitivism, lack of expertise, and a certain opportunism. I continued to live on the blacklist, it has lasted a very long time, that’s why I left, but I came back; this is my country, just like yours, like that of any citizen of this country,“ she says.

She adds that she was at the hairdresser’s when she received the email.

„I decided to make use of the hairstyle and go to a restaurant with friends to celebrate yet another proof that we are on the right path of fighting for a society in which such things will not be possible,“ she told N1.

The Presidency of Matica Srpska banned tonight’s concert by opera singer Katarina Jovanović and pianist Vanja Šćepanović from Belgrade today because Jovanović sang at a civic protest in Belgrade last night.

„In a heated daily political passion, she participated in demonstrations and a street performance in which she sang a song of distinct persiflage, invective content with positions and assessments that are subject to the necessity of serious checks, including the possibility of sanctions,“ reads the statement from Matica.

„Not wanting Matica Srpska to be linked in any way with such irresponsible and unacceptable forms of behavior, we must state with regret that we are forced to cancel the concert of Katarina Jovanović,“ they stated.

Matica says that „outbursts of daily political passion are not allowed, so any concessions in that sense would only produce new forms of unbalanced expressions of views and unprovable assessments.“

„Such concessions can turn Matica Srpska into a battlefield for people incapable of listening to the judgment of reason, justice, and objectivity, and additionally, these concessions completely deny the basic nature and character of our institution,“ the statement reads.

In the statement, they noted that they sincerely hope „that the further development of the Serbian culture of dialogue and the full protection of the Serbian democratic order will rest on the removal of all lightly spoken and unfounded positions that cannot be proven.“

Matica assessed that if such „control“ of daily political passions is established, then „there is hope that the responsible, dialogical, and democratic principle of social behavior in Serbian culture will be permanently and fully protected.“

Katarina Jovanović had previously announced that after the concert she would go to the Railway Station in Novi Sad to pay her respects to those who died under the canopy.

She has spoken out publicly multiple times to support student and civic protests in Serbia.

She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Music Arts in Belgrade and a recipient of several international awards, including the title of Knight of Arts and Letters from the French government. She graduated and received her master’s degree in Belgrade and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She was the artistic director of the Opera of the National Theatre in Belgrade.

The Presidency of Matica Srpska referred to the pianist Vanja Šćepanović in the feminine gender in the statement.