In 2010, Itaru Sasaki from Otsuchi, Japan, learned that his beloved cousin had a deadly illness and only had three months to live. After his cousin’s death, Sasaki placed an old telephone booth in his backyard so that he could communicate with the deceased every day and have his words carried away by the wind.
In 2011, a tsunami struck the Otsuchi area, killing ten percent of the city’s population. Gradually, people became aware of the phone booth and started visiting Itaru Sasaki’s garden to call their lost loved ones.
From March 1, 2022, an old phone booth, identical to the wind phone that stood in Japan, was installed next to the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre. People were invited to come and “call” those whom they didn’t have the chance to say what they wanted to in time, and now it was too late. In over six months, the phone has been picked up about 4000 times. The audio recordings of all these real stories became the basis for the opera’s libretto.
This vinyl record features the original music composed by Dominykas Digimas for the phone booth opera, recorded by sound directors Aleksandra and Vilius Keras in the old Vilnius LP Studio. The stories told by passersby in the phone booth during the performance are transcribed from authentic audio recordings and are included as texts on separate sheets in the booklet of this release.
The phone booth opera Things I Didn’t Dare to Say, and It’s Too Late Now is a sensitive, subtle, bright and hopeful story about people going through grief. At the same time, it is a clear cut through the geographical territories opened up by sorrow, a journey towards encounters, reconciliation and the experience of the world as a whole.
Composer: Dominykas Digimas
Director and dramaturge: Kamilė Gudmonaitė
Sound recording performers:
Teodoras Lipčius (descant)
LNOBT choir singers: Gintarė Radauskaitė, Olga Radzevičienė, Lina Šarkienė (sopranos), Monika Buožytė, Evelina Blažienė, Jovita Dovsevičiūtė-Antanaitė, Evelina Šimkuvienė, Anna Trošina (altos), Egidijus Jonaitis, Mantas Ivanauskas, Kęstutis Papartis, Georgij Popov (tenors), Dainius Jakštas, Žygimantas Jasiūnas, Donatas Žukauskas (baritones), Povilas Butkus, Šarūnas Čepulis (basses)
Choirmaster: Povilas Butkus
LNOBT Symphony Orchestra Group: Dainius Peseckas (violin), Gabrielė Zaneuskaitė (viola), Mykolas Rutkauskas (cello), Samanta Ignatjeva (double-bass), Ula Čaplikaitė (flute), Vytautas Giedraitis (clarinet), Kazimieras Jušinskas (saxophone), Tomas Kulikauskas, Lukas Budzinauskas (percussion), Marija Grikevičiūtė (piano)
Music director and conductor: Ričardas Šumila
Recording producers: Aleksandra Kerienė and Vilius Keras
Recorded at Vilnius LP Studio on May 28–29, 2024
BMR Studios
www.bmr.lt
LP cutting: Sidney Claire Mayer
Emil Berliner Studios
Manufactured at Green Lakes Pressing
Lithuanian copy editor: Rima Jūraitė
English translator: Erika Lastovskytė
English copy editor: Michelle Abramowitz
LP design and layout: Vytautas Volbekas
Producers of the audio recording and LP release: Operomanija, Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre
Sponsors: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius City Municipality
UPC 4772220034047
© Kamilė Gudmonaitė, Dominykas Digimas, Barbora Šulniūtė, LNDT, LNOBT, Operomanija, 2023
℗ Operomanija, LNOBT, 2025
Duration: 48′24″
Price: 36,00 €
Media: LP (180 g, black) and brochure in Lithuanian and English (80 pages)
Year of publication: 2025
Operomanija OP-008
Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre LNOBT-002