Ljubica Vraneš

Vraneš is originally from Vršac in the province of Vojvodina. In her youth, she often travelled to Belgrade on weekends to watch operas, ballets, and plays.^[1] She holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from the Faculty of Music at the University of Arts in Belgrade, where she studied under Radmila Bakočević. In addition to Bakočević, she has credited Biserka Cvejić and Nikola Kitanovski as mentors.^[2] She became a member of the ensemble of the National Theatre in Belgrade in 2011 and has also performed regularly with the Romanian National Opera, Bucharest. An Austrian reviewer has described her as "perfectly cast" for the role of Carmen.^[3]

In 2022, she performed Carmen at the Oper Burg Gars in Austria, in a production that had been postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She received excellent reviews, with one writer praising her as an "attractive, sensual, and yet not exaggerated Carmen, who found convincing role interpretation in her differentiated expression."^[4][5]

Vraneš's many performances of Carmen include a rock version in Craiova, Romania. Her other roles include Santuzza in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Eboli in Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos, and Delilah in Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah.^[6] In 2019, she was part of an international cast of star performers at the Minsk International Christmas Opera Forum in Belarus.^[7]

Vraneš was given the sixth position on the Serbian Progressive Party's Serbia Must Not Stop electoral list in the 2023 Serbian parliamentary election.^[8] This was tantamount to election, and she was indeed elected when the list won a majority victory with 129 out of 250 seats. She has said, "I am a patriot and I will always do the best for my country. That's why I wholeheartedly support Aleksandar Vučić's policy and everything he does." It was rumoured after the election that she would be appointed as Serbia's minister of culture, although ultimately this did not happen.^[9]

In the assembly, she is a member of the culture and information committee, a deputy member of European integration committee and the committee on the diaspora and Serbs in the region, and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, and South Korea.^[10] One of her colleagues in the SNS parliamentary caucus is operatic mezzo-soprano Jadranka Jovanović, whom she has described as a role model in her singing career.^[11]