This year, the international itineraries took us to the most famous stages and festivals of Europe:
- On 21 April, the performance of Baroque theatre noise machines “Navigations” (from “Bad Weather” series) visited the international music and sound art festival “Archipel” in Geneva, Switzerland;
- On 18 and 19 June, opera “Have a Good Day!” was performed at the 52nd Venice Theatre Biennale, Teatro alle Tese, Arsenale, Italy;
- On 28 September, a concert with choreographic tail “The Urban Tale of a Hippo” was presented at the “Musiktheatertage Wien” festival of contemporary music theatre in Vienna, Austria;
- On 2, 3 and 4 October, opera “Have a Good Day!” was performed at the Toulouse Biennale of Performing Arts, ThéâtredelaCité, France;
- On 5 and 6 October, the performance of Baroque theatre noise machines “Navigations” (from “Bad Weather” series) was presented at the MAC VAL Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of the “excentriques” festival programme in the Marne Valley, France;
- On 8 and 9 October, the musical performance “Sports Group” visited Théâtre de la Ville, Les Abbesses in Paris, France;
- On 19 and 20 October, musical images from the archives of Lithuanian television “Radvila Darius, Son of Vytautas” was performed at the Théâtre de la Ville, La Coupole in Paris, France;
- On 22, 23 and 24 October, opera “Have a Good Day!” was presented as part of the “Festival dʼAutomne”, Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris, France;
- On 7 November, the musical performance “Sports Group” was performed at the biennale “Chroniques”, Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille, France;
- On 29 November, opera “Have a Good Day!” was showcased as part of the “Eufonie” Festival, on the main stage of Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, Poland.
All the autumn performances in France part of the “Lithuanian Season in France 2024” programme.
We can traditionally mark our annual visit to the Rotterdam Contemporary Opera Festival “O. Festival”, while the more recent additions to our roadmaps include Madrid, Edinburgh, and the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, where the activities of “Operomanija” were presented, and connections were made for further cooperation, regarding future tours, co-productions, and the mentoring of new works of contemporary music theatre.
In 2024, contacts and plans for the newly established Baltic Contemporary Opera Network are in full swing. Following the meetings of the representatives of the Baltic States and other countries in Vilnius, Aknīste, Tartu and Riga, where we had a chance to know each other better, to discover like-minded people and to begin fostering new international collaborations, we are planning to continue the network’s activities next year through initiation of creative residencies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The past year has been equally intense in terms of creating new works, projects and presenting current repertoire works throughout Lithuania. In the competition for the idea of an interdisciplinary work, organised by “Operomanija” together with the Šiauliai State Drama Theatre, “Seven Anonymous Dances”, conceived by actor and director Darius Gumauskas, was selected; the work is further developed and performers are cast, with a premiere scheduled to take place in autumn of 2025 in Šiauliai and Vilnius. In June, the premiere from the contemporary opera project “The Opera Genome” by “Operomanija” and the LNOBT took place as part of the programme of the Culture Night in the capital city – the work for two opera houses “Absorptio” (by Edvardas Šumila, Agnė Ambrozaitytė, Dominykas Digimas, Dainius Liškevičius and Morta Nakaitė) was presented to the public. Another winning idea that evolved out of this project combines the expressions of opera, contemporary dance and art installation was further tested this year in a creative residency at the Arvo Pärt Centre (Estonia). In December, a new concert programme, “Words and Magic”, featuring the works of Feliksas Bajoras and Algirdas Klova, was presented to the public.
A number of contemporary music theatre experiences were offered to Lithuanian audiences as well – out of 174 events this year, around 150 took place in Lithuania. The sonic experience at the Vilna ghetto “The Filler” traditionally took place in the streets of the Vilnius Old Town, while other performances and concert programmes of the repertoire have been presented in Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai, Panevėžys, Plungė, Anykščiai, Ukmergė, Zapyškis, Lapės, Rumšiškės, Valkininkai, and at the “Yaga Gathering” festival in Varėna district.
This year we also offered various educational activities and presented the public concerts of the “Sodas Choir” (led by Ieva Marmienė and Vaidas Bartušas) initiated and curated by our organisation at the culture complex “Sodas 2123”. Audiences were invited to the choir’s open rehearsals and audio recordings of the choir were made. This collective is fostering new traditions of community music-making, exploring the practices of collective vocal improvisation, which will soon be tested in a new stage work.
It was also a year full of smaller and larger achievements. Among the latter is the success of “The Urban Tale of a Hippo” (by Panayiotis Kokoras, Andrius Katinas, Nanni Vapaavuori, Morta Nakaitė, and “Synaesthesis”) at the international competition “Music Theatre NOW” – this piece was among the winners of the competition. Composer Dominykas Digimas was awarded the Lithuanian Composersʼ Union Award for his music for the phone booth opera “Things I Didn’t Dare to Say, and It’s Too Late Now” (a co-production with LNDT and LNOBT). In addition, the phone booth opera was recognised as one of the two best performances at the Vilnius International Theatre Festival “Sirenos” by the jury of foreign critics and curators of performing arts, who have watched the showcase of the Lithuanian theatre. Also, Ana Ablamonova, the director and producer of “Operomanija”, was awarded the St. Christopher Award for her ideas and works for Vilnius, contribution to and promotion of the city.
As we are approaching the age of majority, the seventeen years of organisation’s activity was marked with a new logo (designed by Ugnė Balčiūnaitė), and the audience’s favourite piece – the sonic experience at the Vilna “The Filler” was released as a vinyl record. The final touches are put on the vinyl record release projects for the phone booth opera “Things I Didn’t Dare to Say, and It’s Too Late Now” and the musical performance “Sports Group”, which will be available in 2025.
“Operomanija’s” activities in 2024 were widely covered and appreciated in the Lithuanian and foreign media with over 40 reviews, surveys, and radio interviews. We invite you to take a look at the About Us section of our website, which is dedicated to bibliography.
We are entering the next year with intensive planning of the 2025 repertoire, tours in Lithuania and abroad. On 1-2 February and 23-24 May, the phone booth opera “Things I Didn’t Dare to Say, and It’s Too Late Now” will be performed at the Grand Hall of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre (tickets for February’s performance are sold out already). In the spring, “Radvila Darius, Son of Vytautas” and “Have a Good Day!” will be performed at the Arts Printing House. And starting from 19 March “The Filler” will once again be performed at the streets of the Vilnius Old Town. Tickets for these events are on sale now (Bilietai.lt). But there are more events to come.
In autumn 2025, we will invite you to the 9th NOA (New Opera Action) Festival of Contemporary Opera, where we will premiere operas and interdisciplinary art projects by established artists in the field of contemporary music theatre, but we also promise you new and unexpected artistic collaborations.
Our sincere thanks go to our sponsors in 2024: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius City Municipality, Nordic Culture Point, LATGA, Lithuanian Culture Institute, as well as our partners in different parts of Lithuania and many foreign countries. We also wish to thank all supporters of our activities and visitors of our events. We are grateful for your attention and openness!
We wish you a positive and inspiring 2025 and invite you to walk through it full of contemporary music theatre experiences!