The fourth contemporary opera festival NOA announced the first review-writing contest for the critics of the young generation. The purpose of the contest was to encourage young musicologists, theatre researchers, art historians, film critics, literary authors and all the young art specialists from other spheres to write about contemporary opera productions.
Music theatre critique demands extensive knowledge of music, theatre, visual and other art forms. Traditionally, in Lithuania the productions of musical theatres are reviewed by either musicologists or theatre researchers. The former focus on the musical elements of the production and the quality of the music performance; they also analyse individual characteristics of composer’s music, but they rarely touch upon other aspects of performance that are just as (or even more) important. Meanwhile, theatre researchers possess professional competence to analyse the work of the director, the playwright or the visual artists, but they rarely go into in-depth analysis of opera and other genres of the musical theatre.
The contest for quality reviews sought to strengthen the voice of the young generation critics and to highlight the problematic issues in modern opera analysis. It also aspired to discover the talented critics of the new generation and to provide them with an opportunity to publish their works in the best publications on art and culture in the country.
Information for the contestants:
– age limit of the contestants – 30 years (inclusive);
– assessment commission consisted of professional critics representing diverse spheres of performing arts: theatre critic Vaidas Jauniškis, dance critic Vita Mozūraitė, music critic Jūratė Katinaitė;
– contestants were entitled to visit all the events of the festival for free, provided that they commit to submit to the organisers of the festival one review on the due date;
– reviews had to consist of at least 1800 characters (with spaces);
– subject of the review could range from a single performance to entire festival;
– all submitted reviews were be published right away;
– 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners were awarded monetary prizes.
Review-writing competition of young generation critics Versions of Quality Reviews took place during the festival (April 9–16, 2011). The round table discussion of contemporary opera critics supplemented and summarised the competition of young critics.