During the first meetings with the author of the libretto Tomas Andriukonis, composer Albertas Navickas presented a wide range of meanings within the theme he was interested in, summarising it as an image of “a woman in a monastery and something very important happens in her life“. The structure of the libretto and its spacious meanings later also served as an inspiration for the musical form.
When after one month I have received the text of the libretto (the original text remained mostly unchanged) I was fascinated how each word in the four stanza vers libre contained highly intense notional field; every word expressed at least a paragraph of the content of my original ideas.
Composer Albertas Navickas
Further work on the musical material naturally followed the structure of the text. Four strophes dictated the four-part approach towards form, phonetic structure of words determined the vocal techniques, etc. A term “short opera” also led towards condensation of ideas: chamber character of the piece is reflected in selected structure of instruments, with obvious dominance of solo voice.
The third stage of creative process – transfer of the piece onto the stage – should serve as an ultimate clue that “something very important” is happening in the life of the persona, since both I and Tomas were deliberately disguising it. So it is up to Vilius to decide upon the direction of the massive field of meanings of this multi-layered (like I said, synthetic) piece…