Zubin Mehta Conducts Wagner, Schubert, Dvorak at Kolarac
Maestro Zubin Mehta led the Belgrade Philharmonic through Wagner, Schubert and Dvorak on October 23, and the orchestra heads to Sofia next week before playing BEMUS.
Tickets for the concert cost between 4,000 and 12,000 dinars and had sold out before Zubin Mehta stepped in front of the Belgrade Philharmonic at the Kolarac Endowment on Friday evening, October 23. Objektiv and Kurir report that a large crowd filled the hall, and Press says every seat was taken. The conductor, in the year of his 90th birthday, came to Belgrade to mark the anniversary, and the evening he put together is best read from what stood on the music stands.
What was performed at Kolarac?
The program had three works: the overture to Richard Wagner’s “Rienzi,” Franz Schubert’s Third Symphony and Antonin Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony. The reports list them in that order, but none says outright that the performance followed it, so that part should not be taken for granted. What is certain is the choice: an opera overture, a symphony from the Viennese tradition and a Czech one, all from the 19th century. For a conductor of his age standing before an orchestra he has known for almost seven decades, a program of three big names is no accident, but what he meant to say with it, no report states.
At the end of the concert, the audience sent off the maestro and the musicians with long applause. None of the reports mentions an encore, so this article does not either.
Preparations began several days earlier. After the first rehearsal, as Press reported on October 19, Mehta said:
“I am happy to be working with the musicians of the Belgrade Philharmonic again.”
The line is short and ceremonial, but it comes from a man who has worked with this orchestra since 1958.
How did a bond of almost seven decades begin?
According to the history given by the Philharmonic itself, it started in 1958, when Mehta was at the beginning of his career and the Belgrade Philharmonic gave him one of his first professional chances. He went on to become music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic, and he worked with the Israel Philharmonic for five decades. By the Philharmonic’s own announcement, Friday’s concert was the 19th meeting between the maestro and the orchestra.
At his previous appearance in that hall, according to B92, the ovations lasted fifteen minutes and would not let him leave the stage, so he addressed the audience:
“Having conducted the greatest orchestras in the world, I can tell you that the Belgrade Philharmonic is one of the best!”
The Philharmonic quoted those words in its announcement of Friday’s concert as well.
Where does the anniversary tour go next?
Belgrade is only one stop on Mehta’s world tour for his 90th birthday, which also includes Barcelona, Vienna, Munich and Berlin. The celebration began in January 2026 in Mumbai, the city where he was born, where the Belgrade Philharmonic played in India for the first time from January 11 to 18 and became the first orchestra with which Mehta started marking the anniversary.
Presale tickets for Philharmonic subscribers went on sale on October 5, and general sales opened on October 7 through the Efinity system and at the box office at 11 Studentski Trg. In our preview published on Friday, October 23, before the concert, no tickets were left.
The Philharmonic has plenty of work ahead. According to its calendar, the orchestra plays in Sofia on October 28 and appears at the 58th BEMUS on October 30. So less than a week separates Kolarac from Sofia and BEMUS.
