Have you ever had one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself to make sure you aren’t dreaming? For some unexplainable reason I often find myself in situations where I whisper “How did I get here?” So it’s almost thirty years since I arrived on these shores and it coincided with the opening of the 1998 Dubrovnik Summer Festival.

Whilst most of those early days are somewhat foggy there is one memory that stuck in my mind, mainly due to my acrophobia.

My wife and I went to see a concert in the Rector’s Palace and as it was full in the atrium we sat upstairs on the stone balcony. I can’t remember who played as all I could think of was the long drop down onto the stone floor, my phobia had the better of me.

Fast forward almost three decades and my mother said to me “I can’t believe that you’ll be doing that.” She was recalling another fear I used to have—well, not so much a fear as a debilitating shyness.

It took my time to face my fears, a long time, and lots of hard work and mental strength, but I succeeded. You know how I know I succeeded, because I was sitting on those same stone balconies holding a script that I was about to read to a packed audience whilst the famous pianist Matej Mestrović was getting ready to accompany my dialogue.

So that’s shyness and acrophobia flushed away. Yes, that's what my mother was referring to when she expressed her surprise at my public appearance. Although I appreciate classical music I am far from being knowledgeable. However, I am not sure if I have ever been so impressed with a classical artist, a classical pianist.

To open the concert, he invited members of the audience up to the piano to play a few notes, and then from their openings he “improvised” a whole composition. No notes, no rehearsal, not even much time to think, and he did this three times and each time just as impressive as the last. It was like somebody composing in real time, right in front of me.

I wondered if he composed the music for the opening of the Pelješac Bridge just as quickly? “How the hell did you do that?” I asked him in the dressing room as we changed after the show. “I learnt in the womb,” he smiled, “my mother used to play the piano when she was pregnant.” I guess you need to be born with such skills, or at the very least learn them from an early age, and the embryo is pretty young. “I was playing the piano like a toy when I was a young child,” he added. What we learn from a young age stays with us our whole lives.

My role in the whole evening was considerably smaller and less impressive, although hopefully interesting for the audience. It was my honour to read the prologue from Uncle Maroje, yes Uncle as it was in English. Now, I have read Dubrovnik’s Shakespeare in Croatian, but never in English, and in my own mother tongue it had a certain ring, a certain flow and rhyme. Dare I say it sounded better in English?

It certainly sounded more like Shakespeare in English. “Ah, now I understand why his nose is polished brass,” said one foreigner after the show. He was referring to Drzić’s statue and had connected my opening line “I, Long Nose, Necromancer from the Great Indies, bid a good day, quiet night and a fruitful year,” with the nose of the playwright and presumed it had some special meaning. It hasn’t, but I guess many legends are born from such rumours and misunderstandings. The evening came to a close, the audience applauded, Mestrović did his encore (and very well deserved it was) and flowers were handed out. Now, I have left out one very important detail.

This concert collided with England playing against Slovakia in the Euros. No, I didn’t watch the match, which is probably a good result for my blood pressure. I was, however, getting updated by friends and colleagues on the score through the whole concert. I even took a celebratory selfie on that very stone balcony as we won. It was a very good evening, indeed. 

Read more Englishman in Dubrovnik…well, if you really want to

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the author
Mark Thomas (aka Englez u Dubrovniku) is the editor of The Dubrovnik Times. He was born and educated in the UK and moved to live in Dubrovnik in 1998. He works across a whole range of media, from a daily radio show to TV and in print. Thomas is fluent in Croatian and this column is available in Croatia on the website – Dubrovnik Vjesnik