Anica Nonveiller

Anica Nonveiller (January 22, 1957- ) is a Canadian-Serbian journalist, writer and producer. [cite web|url=http://www.montreal.com/cgi/review.cgi?id=214
title=montreal.com - theatre|publisher=www.montreal.com|accessdate=2008-06-21] She is the sister of a Parisian theatre director and writer Miloš Lazin. She got wide media attention in 1992 when she was fired from a state-owned Radio Belgrade for opposing Milosevic's foreign policies and lack of freedom of speech during the Yugoslav wars. After receiving death threats in 1992 she took refuge in France and latter moved with her family to Canada. Since 1996 she published articles, essays and produced over 20 plays in Montreal that incorporated theatre, classical singing and political engagement.

Life

She was born in Kikinda and raised in Belgrade in a mostly secular family by a half German and Nazarene mother, Rakila Blat, and Serbian agronomist David Lazin. Under Tito’s regime, her father spent two years in prison for political activism. She graduated in 1979 in classical singing at University of Belgrade and obtained a job as a musical director for national television. She won two prizes for the best radio-work in 1985 on Marlene Dietrich and in 1987 on the anti-Stalinist Bulat Okudzhava, which was censored but gave her a large following in the underground culture.

In 1991 she broadcasted, during prime time, a forbidden Croatian anti-war song “E, moj druze Beogradski” (Oh my belgrade comrade) by Jura Stublic and was suspended. After taking her superiors to court and losing, she appeared on television, published articles in the oppositional newspaper, Borba, and quite rapidly become a symbol of anti-war resistance in the early 1990s. In 1992 she was discovered to be on a “liquidation list” by an independent journalist and was given political asylum from French government. In December of that year she moved to Paris with her mother and children and then went with her husband to Canada. She subsequently completed a master's degree in communications at University of Montreal.

Lyrical protest art

In 1997, in Montreal, she opened a classical singing school and a production house called Aria [cite web
url=http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm7-9/aria.html
title=Aria turns 5
publisher=www.scena.org
accessdate=2008-06-21
last=Chan
first=Wah Keung ] that promoted rigorous East-Europeen educational methods, socialist lifestyle and political debate.

The school become famous for offering classes to young students in exchange of administrative work and providing interest free credit for musical coaching. The company attracted by 2003 professional singers and actors who agreed to work with a body of students in local theatres and festivals. La Traviatta and the rest of nonveiller's work is highly intertextual. She argues that parody has again become prevalent in the 21st century, as artists have sought to connect with the past while registering differences brought by modernity. For example when characters or settings belonging to one work are used in a humorous or ironic way in another. She re-adapted the 19th century Opera classics by borrowing from their original literary or mythological inspiration in form of theatre dialogue and superimposing it with current events. The work on Bizet’s Carmen(2004) was revisited by Mérimée's original text. Verdi’s La Traviatta (2005) was restructured by going back to The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils and the psychoanalytical tradition. Rigoletto (2007) was brought back to Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo and was transformed into a anti-postmodern parody about power, ideology and consumerism in form of lyrical protest art. [cite web|url=http://www.montreal.com/cgi/review.cgi?id=214|title=montreal.com - theatre|publisher=www.montreal.com|accessdate=2008-06-21]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm7-9/aria.html At La Scene Musicale]

* [http://www.montreal.com/cgi/review.cgi?id=214 At Fringe fest]

* [http://www.cqm.qc.ca/docs/adoptez/2005/CQM_brochure_2005.pdf At Journe internationale de la musique]