With a special work by Richard Strauss, a new cycle of performances lasting several years “There will be no repetition” starts. During it, the Lithuanian Opera Star and the Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra, led by maestro Gintaras Rinkevičius, brought together by the director and producer Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, will take the breath away of the music lovers of the country for one evening, offering to experience works and voices of world significance.
For the first time, the creators of VCO return to the renewed hall of the House of Congress, where the history of “bohemians” was once born. During this time, many developers, like the hall itself, have undergone huge transformations. Their results – the greatest personal and national achievements in opera – will be presented in the series “There will be no repetition”.
The works played in it will become like a living bridge for one evening to the most important stages of the world, where our soloists appear today.
Of course, in the congress hall, sometimes labeled as a “bohemian” first, the traditions of innovation will be maintained. Here is October 14. A.Grigorian and K.Smoriginas will perform the parts of Salomea and Johanan together on the same stage for the first time.
“Our moral and creative duty is to give Lithuanian viewers the opportunity to hear Asmik Salomėja at least once in her homeland. After all, this is the role for which she won the title of the best soloist in the world at the International Opera Awards”, says D. Ibelhauptaitė.
In the fateful year of 2018, at the Salzburg Festival (Austria), Italian director Romeo Castellucci saw a new revival of Salome – one of the most mystical biblical stories that attracts all kinds of art. The theater visionary refused to depict Herod’s daughter, who asked her father for Johanan’s severed head, as a sociopath resembling a femme fatale. In this interpretation, she is a victim of an imprisoning gaze, sensitive and the only warm life on the stage. Here, A. Grigorian’s acting talent shined, allowing the director’s ideas to come true. At the same time, the soloist captivated the elite audience of the festival with her voice and musical interpretation.
Asmik became a world-class star overnight, and this year she conquered the New York Metropolitan stage in her next major role, Madam Butterfly. However, La Scala in Milan, the Vienna National Opera, the Arena di Verona (Italy), the Royal Opera House in London, the Deutches Opera in Berlin and many other stages opened after Asmik’s Salome sounded on the stone-framed stage of the Salzburg mountains.
Having traveled almost all over the world with his calling card – Escamilio’s party, and performed it in London’s Covent Garden in the spring, Kostas Smorigins tamed the role of Johanan at the Zurich Opera (Switzerland) and the Bergen Festival (Norway). It received huge critical attention and appreciation, highlighting the ability of his powerful and wide voice to maintain a young, seamless sound, perfectly combined with organic acting and strong stage energy. Today Kosto Johanan is waiting for “Salome” in Hanover (Germany), Antwerp (Belgium) and Malmö (Sweden), and now also in Vilnius.
Pauliaus Peleckis/BNS photo/Kostas Smoriginas
“What we see now in world culture, in the opera press and on the stage, when our soloists have become the leading performers of prestigious stages, is the result of a long and systematic joint work between them and us at home, studying note by note, word by word, and preparing new parts. The acting expression of the role is given no less attention than the musical expression. Believe me, when you are sitting in a hall in Salzburg or Covent Garden today, which is rustling and applauding the Lithuanian soloists, you want to stand up and raise the tricolor,” says the director, who recently worked as a film producer in Hollywood, continuing:
“For fifteen years, our home was in Congress. Here, in technically very poor conditions, we created as many as seventeen full-blooded performances. Soloists came back to show how they had improved or to create new roles for the first time at home, so that it would be easier to debut them in foreign theaters later. Now the next stage has come, when we want to bring everyone back in order to show Lithuania those roles for which our soloists were loved, appreciated and awarded by the whole world. Because this is the history of our culture, our operas Golden ageand also an inspiration to the young.
Although currently the kind of stage productions we used to create are not possible in the new LVSO concert hall, there are excellent acoustics here, so we believe that this will be an ideal medium for hearing the music and delicacy of Salomėja’s voices.”
While working with VCO soloists, D. Ibelhauptaitė chose the most difficult path for a director – the path of an educator. Following her work, one can see from today’s perspective the sequential processes that helped the soloists who worked with her step by step, and sometimes a huge leap, to create and develop on stage. Over the years, her versatile work, like the “bohemians” themselves, could not fit into the framework of the title. Neither “collective”, nor “troupe” or “theatre” suited them. All this movement of artists has indeed become a phenomenon, something that cannot be grasped in a physical sense. VCO is a phenomenon that, despite all circumstances, had to happen and spread around the world in order for us to enjoy its fruits at home today. That one, short, eternal evening that will never be repeated.
#famous #Asmik #Grigorian #perform #Salome #Vilnius #find #Culture
2024-08-02 20:26:58
