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Brassier than Balkan brass

Goran Bregović puts an audacious spin on a Western classic
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By James Scanlon
For The Prague Post
March 26th, 2008 issue

Bregović has moved well beyond his Balkan brass roots, adding an orchestra and chorus to his current tour.
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Goran Bregović

When: Monday, March 31, at 8
Where: Congress Center
Tickets: 550-1,450 Kč, available through Ticketpro, Ticket Art and at the venue

Contemporary Balkan music has been enjoying something of a renaissance, with many performers building on the old traditions with a more Westernized approach.
Born in Sarajevo in 1950, Goran Bregović has been a major player in the field for almost three decades. His reputation and skill in taking some of the biggest risks imaginable has catapulted him to the world stage.
With his usual tendency to stretch things to the limit, his latest album probably has Bizet turning in his grave. Bregović produced his own version of the famous opera Carmen, turning it completely on its head by using a rather brassy Slavonic lass with a thick Balkan accent as the main protagonist. The disc is titled Karmen – With A Happy End, and Bregović says it all developed from a bad habit.
“I had developed a habit of wanting a drink whenever I went to the opera,” he says via e-mail. “One day it was Carmen, and it crossed my mind that the Gypsy character Carmen in the story is a parallel version of a lot of today’s Gypsy women. But Carmen deserves a better finish! So I started to make a film script.”
Bregović being a musician, however, that’s what came out first. “We played Karmen at our concerts, beginning with the premiere in 2004. We played 130 concerts all over the world.” As for getting it on celluloid, he says, “In two years, I’m going to make a film version.”
Bregović started out as a classically trained violinist, switching in the mid-’70s to guitar, which he thought would be more attractive to women. He formed a band called Bijelo Dugme (White Button), which over a period of 15 years released numerous critically acclaimed albums, and had a seismic effect on the alternative Yugoslav rock scene.
Shortly before his beloved Yugoslavia became ravaged with war in 1992, Bregović had found a new niche in composing music for films, thanks largely to his collaborations with filmmaker Emir Kusturica, a fellow countryman and longtime friend. Just like Bregović, Kusturica started his career as a rocker, playing bass in an equally provocative band called Zabranjeno Pusenje. Art-house films like Time Of The Gypsies (1989), Arizona Dream (1993) and Underground (1995) turned him into a household name.
As for Bregović, while continuing to experiment with his own inimitable fusion of Balkan sounds, he broadened his musical horizons working with artists as diverse as Iggy Pop, Cesaria Evora, Ofra Haza and Scott Walker. Even with his latest turn to the classics, he says it’s all part of the same musical continuum.
“There was no break between images,” he says. “The punk and the melodist I became later are linked very strongly. The rock ’n’ roll I made in my youth had its purpose, in that I wanted to find modern ways in my music.”
The ambiguity and juxtaposition of styles Bregović has employed is reflected perfectly in his own Wedding and Funeral Band. The happiest and saddest of occasions, he says, fit together neatly in his part of the world.
“I come from a place where life and death are not as far apart as you might think in Western countries,” he says. “My musicians perpetuate this tradition, because when they’re not with me, they’re playing in villages for both weddings and funerals.”
What all this portends for Bregović’s musical future not even he can say.
“I’m not interested in career considerations anymore,” he says. “I just write the music I really like. It can be infantile or complicated — whatever I like. It is absolutely unnecessary for it to have a common theme.”
Not one to do anything by halves, he’s bringing a monster entourage to Prague:  an enlarged version of his Wedding and Funeral Band, plus a choir. Bregović’s army of musicians will be aiming to get the crowd moving to tracks chosen mainly from Kusturica’s films, the 2002 CD Tales and Songs From Weddings And Funerals and some selections from Karmen.
Be prepared for rock ’n’ roll, but not as we know it.

James Scanlon can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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