Anica Lazin Nonveiller (

Serbian Cyrillic The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (, ), also known as the Serbian script, (, ), is a standardized variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language. It originated in medieval Serbia and was significantly reformed in the 19th cen ...

: Аница Лазин Нонвеје; born 1957) is a

Serbian Canadian The community of Serbian Canadians (; ) includes Canadian citizens of Serb ethnicity, or people born in Serbia who permanently reside in Canada. Serbs (and Serbians) have migrated to Canada in various waves during the 20th century. Today there ...

journalist, writer and producer. She is the sister of a Parisian theatre director Miloš Lazin. In 1991 she was fired from a state-owned

Radio Belgrade Radio Belgrade (, ) is a state-owned and operated radio station in Belgrade, Serbia. It has four different programs (Radio Belgrade 1, Radio Belgrade 2, Radio Belgrade 3, and Radio Belgrade 202), a precious archive of several hundreds of thousa ...

for broadcasting a Croatian war song during the

Yugoslav wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...

. After receiving death threats in 1992 she took refuge in France and latter moved with her family to Canada. Since 1996 she published political articles, essays and ''Tisza'' an

autobiographical novel An autobiographical novel, also known as an autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography, or autobiographical fiction novel, is a type of novel which uses autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The ...

. She's the founder and director of the production house Aria that produces plays in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

that incorporates theatre, classical singing and political engagement.

Life

Anica Lazin was born in

Kikinda Kikinda ( sr-Cyrl, Кикинда, ; ) is a List of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the North Banat District in Serbia. The city's urban area has 32,084 inhabitants, while the city administrative area has 49,326 inhabit ...

and raised in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

by a half-German mother, Rakila Blat, and a Serbian agronomist David Lazin. Under

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito ( ; , ), was a Yugoslavia, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 unti ...

's regime, her father has spent two years in prison for political activism. She graduated in 1979 in classical singing and got a job as a musical director for

. She won two prizes for

radio dramas Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

in 1985 on

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however, Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

and in 1987 on the anti-

Stalinist Stalinism (, ) is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1927 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalinism in ...

Bulat Okudzhava Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava (; ka, ბულატ ოკუჯავა; ; May 9, 1924 – June 12, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter of Georgian-Armenian ancestry. He was one of the founders o ...

, which was censored but gave her a large following in the Belgrade's

underground culture Underground culture, or simply underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different from the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by others. The word "underground" is used ...

. In 1991 Lazin broadcast a Croatian war song "E, moj druže beogradski" (Oh, my Belgrade Comrade) by Jura Stublić and was suspended. After engaging in legal action and losing, she appeared on television, published articles in the oppositional newspaper, Borba, and joined the 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 and Valognes with her mother and children and later with her husband to Montreal, Canada.

Lyrical protest art

From 1997 to 2008, she directed a musical production house Aria that promoted rigorous Eastern European educational methods and political debate. The company re-adapted 19th century Opera classics by borrowing from their original literary 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 traviata (2005) was restructured by going back to

La Dame aux camélias ''The Lady of the Camellias'' (), sometimes called ''Camille'' in English, is a novel by Alexandre Dumas ''fils''. First published in 1848 and subsequently adapted by Dumas for the stage, the play premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in P ...

Alexandre Dumas, fils Alexandre Dumas (; 27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) was a French author and playwright, best known for the romantic novel ''La Dame aux Camélias'' (''The Lady of the Camellias'', usually titled '' Camille'' in English-language versions), pu ...

Rigoletto ''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had c ...

(2007) was brought back to Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo.

References

External links

At La Scene Musicale

At Fringe fest

At Journe internationale de la musique

Radio-Canada

Éditions Trois-Pistoles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nonveiller, Anica 1957 births Living people People from Kikinda Serbian journalists Serbian people of German descent Serbian emigrants to Canada