Our year began with great news from the International Theatre Institute and organisation Music Theatre NOW, whose eponymous 6th International Contemporary Music Theatre Competition awarded the prize to the concert with a choreographic tail The Urban Tale of a Hippo (by Panayotis Kokoras, Andrius Katinas, Nanni Vapaavuori, Morta Nakaitė and Synaesthesis ensemble). The winners of this competition have the opportunity to be noticed by international festival organisers and art curators and to go on international tours.
The Urban Tale of a Hippo (Urban Tale / Tail of a Hippo) premiered in Vilnius in October 2022 at the 8th NOA (New Opera Action) Festival of Contemporary Opera. This spring, the “hippo” will return to the Smoke Factory in Vilnius: the events will take place on 24 and 25 April and the piece will be performed four times.
The spring repertoire also includes other works produced by the Vilnius City Contemporary Music Theatre Company “Operomanija”. On 22 March, the musical pictures from the archives of the Lithuanian Television Radvila Darius, Son of Vytautas will be shown at the culture complex SODAS 2123, and on 18 April, the opera for 10 cashiers, sounds of a supermarket and piano Have a Good Day! will welcome the audience at the Arts Printing House. By the way, Have a Good Day! won the Music Theatre NOW competition back in 2012, and it was then that the opera began its ongoing tour through venues around the world, which shall continue with performances at the Venice Theatre Biennale in June 2024. On 17 and 18 April, Confessions, a spatial opera in the dark, will be performed again at the Arts Printing House, and from 12 March to 12 May the sonic experience The Filler at the Vilna Ghetto will return to the streets of the capital city. Tickets to all events are distributed by Bilietai.lt.
We look forward to welcoming you at the Vilnius Book Fair on 22-25 February at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Centre LITEXPO. For the third year in a row, the company’s stand (No. 1.19) will be traditionally located in the Music Hall. Here you will be able to be the first to pick up and purchase our most recent vinyl record dedicated to the sonic experience The Filler at the Vilna Ghetto; an LP recording of this sonic journey is complemented by the publication of a photo-essay by the creator of humanist photography Artūras Morozovas.
The acquaintance with The Filler will be continued at the LRT event at the Vilnius Book Fair on 23 February, at 3 pm, with a conversation “A Journey from the Old Town of Vilnius to the Radio Airwaves”, featuring LRT and “Operomanija’s” creative team behind the radio documentary The Abyss. The Abyssis a documented audio journey presenting Joshua Zak, one of the protagonists of The Filler and an eyewitness of the Vilnius Ghetto, and his niece Tsila Zak, as they travel through Vilnius and its surroundings in search of the traces of their loved ones who perished during the Holocaust.
We would like to remind you that “Operomanija”, together with the Šiauliai State Drama Theatre is looking for submissions of ideas for an interdisciplinary performing arts work from artists and / or creative teams from different fields until 10 February. The organisers of the international competition are looking for ideas not only from artists residing in Lithuania but also from abroad. For more information about the terms of the competition and the entry form, please click here.