Radojka Šverko

Radojka Šverko is a Croatian singer, born on 9 April 1948 in Pazin in Istria, with an alto voice known for its power and colour. Croatian Wikipedia calls her a diva of Croatian song, and her career spans festival hits at home, awards abroad, rock operas and sacred music.

She started as a member and soloist of children's choirs and turned professional in 1967. Her first international success came in 1969, when she finished third at the Atlantico festival in Tenerife with Alfi Kabiljo's "Nuestro mundo". The wider public at home came to know her at the 1970 Split festival with "Kud plovi ovaj brod", words by Arsen Dedić, which the Italian star Sergio Endrigo also sang there. At the Rio de Janeiro festival of 1970 her performance of Kabiljo's "Svijet je moj" won the "Bafo da onça" prize, given in honour of Janis Joplin, who had died a month earlier.

She went on to sing at festivals and on television across the world, from Tokyo, Los Angeles and Madrid to Seoul, Athens and Caracas, and at home she became a regular at the Split festival, Zagrebfest, Opatija and MIK, with songs such as "Konistra moje matere", "Negdje u magli", "Ljubim te do bola", "Još mirišu kušini" and "Žena". Her albums run from Radojka Šverko (1973) and S tobom u snu (1975) to Vatra i led (1993) and Va dihe mora (1995).

In the 1980s she turned to the stage, as Jana in the rock opera Gubec-beg and later in Grička vještica, Les Misérables (as Fantine) and Karolina Riječka. She also acted in Rajko Grlić's film Bravo maestro, shown in competition at Cannes in 1978, and often sings sacred music by Bach, Gounod, Schubert, Verdi and Mozart in churches.

In 2003 she sang at Dora as a guest of Divas with Meri Cetinić, Gabi Novak and Josipa Lisac, and from 2011 she toured as one of the "Croatian divas" with Gabi Novak and Tereza Kesovija. She has won the Porin for best female vocal several times, for "Žena" in 1995, "You Are So Beautiful" in 2013 and "Dodirni mi srce" in 2014, when she also received the Porin for lifetime achievement.