Star Maestro
The incredible career of the famous Croatian Maestro.
Vjekoslav grew up in a family that was connected to music. Father Josip was a famous tenor in the Osijek, Rijeka and Zagreb operas. Alemko's mother, Štefanini Šutej, earned a doctorate in law, but was also musically gifted and also sang in opera.
Even as a child, Vjekoslav accompanied his father to rehearsals at Rijeka's HNK. The family moved to Zagreb not long after, and Vjekoslav discovered the charms of Zagreb's Croatian National Theater while his father was rehearsing. He attended a music school from an early age. But like any other boy, at that time he was more interested in football. He was happy to play games with his little gang from the street in Zagreb's Trnje.
One of his favorite memories was how, as a seventeen-year-old, he traveled with his father to Vienna for an opera performance in one of the world's most famous music houses - the Vienna State Opera. He said that at that time they were traveling in a fiji, and Vjekoslav didn't even have his own tie, but borrowed his father's. At that time, he could not have dreamed that, soon, he himself would conduct in the famous philharmonic, where he would have more than a hundred performances. In Vienna, Vjekoslav had the honor of opening the opera season with a performance of "Don Carlos", which was broadcast live on the squares of Graz and Vienna.
He began his successful career at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, where he studied conducting with Professor Igor Gjardov. Many years later, he replaced the aforementioned professor at the academy. After graduating, he spent several years in Rome studying under the influential Franco Ferrara. Despite his great talent and knowledge, after his return to Zagreb he was unemployed for several years. He started conducting at the Zagreb theater "Komedija", and then worked as a conductor at the Zagreb and Split HNK.
He started his international career in New Jersey at the Hollybush festival. In the early nineties, he was the artistic director of that festival. His biggest international arrangement was in Venice at the prestigious theater "La Fenice", where he worked as a music conductor, conducting the premieres of "Rigoletto" and "Evgenia Onegin".
Vjekoslav had a famous career in Spain as well. He founded the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville and was its artistic director and chief conductor from 1990 to 1996.
The famous Spanish tenor José Carreras cultivated a special friendship with Vjekoslav. He often recalled how Vjekoslav was an exceptional support to him at the time when he contracted leukemia. He would describe Vjekoslav as an optimistic and cheerful person. When the Spanish artist recovered, he invited Vjekoslav to conduct his comeback concert in Vienna.
He recorded many operas for foreign record companies, and for many years he conducted Christmas concerts in Vienna and gala concerts in Budapest and Moscow.
In the last years of his life, he was involved in Croatian music. In the summer of 2008, he was diagnosed with leukemia. The first time he went to America for a bone marrow transplant, and when he returned to Zagreb, he believed that he would soon recover completely because he felt better. He held a big comeback concert conducting the "Opera under the Stars" in the Vatroslav Lisinski Hall. But unfortunately his health deteriorated again.
He underwent a second bone marrow transplant in Zagreb, but it failed. Then he joined the waiting list for a third transplant. A donor from Croatia was soon found, but he changed his mind at the last minute.
Šuflej did not blame him. He said - I don't blame him, a man has the right to change his mind. - He thought that he would not wait for the third transplant. He was right. The great Croatian maestro of world fame died in December of the same year. Now he conducts the Opera among the stars forever.
