The opera was inspired by an idea that the world we see around us depends entirely on our own individual imagination and that every one of us imprisoned in the labyrinths of our thoughts lives a very separate, peculiar and extraordinary life in an inimitable individual reality.
Opera Hole is a narrative about parallel worlds, concurrent lives lived, being without contact, existence of an individual, the growth, flourishing and shake-up of his/her personal life. About anomaly and supernaturalism, about the limits of perception and the limitlessness of the world…
The Hole is a zone similar to the Bermuda Triangle, Neverland and the Purgatory (or an intermediate variant of them all). It is about people who got entangled in the situations they themselves created and experienced. They states of being are stagnant – they do not move or progress. The characters find themselves in a hole – physical, spiritual and mental.
Chamber opera cast consists of 8 performers – 8 characters, where everyone also acts as instrumentalist, singer, actor and dancer. Over the course of the opera everyone is transformed, “moving” to a different space, continually changing. Only the three main characters remain “themselves” throughout the opera – they are symbols of different worlds, possessing their space and their own sounds.
In terms of stage scenery and dramatic expression the opera Hole is akin to multimedia or musical installation. Following the tradition, the opera consists of 7 scenes, yet the action is connected not via the storyline, but through scenic-musical “impulses”, messages to the audience, which will be perceived differently by everyone, discovering his/her individual perception of what this opera is about.Hole is a piece that gives the spectators the chance to travel safely in the layers of the subconscious without fear of consequences. The sounds, accords, rhythmical patterns, voices, action, and images of the opera lead towards the bottom, which is the beginning of the “hole” in every one of us.
We, the people, have agreed on how to count time and what to call things, and this is the point where our separate worlds meet. Everything else will remain in obscurity for eternity. Then why cannot we dream that there is an endless number of those worlds, beings and realities, about the existence of which we will never find out. And why cannot we dream that sometimes amid those unknown worlds, maybe by chance, the meeting points emerge, which might also become the “reality”, as we call it…
Composer Rūta Vitkauskaitė
They say that every man is part of the infinity – we have named it a “hole” here. It is complicated psychedelics that exists in every man. In some of them, however, it is active, in others – passive. This is a visualisation of the diagnosis stuck in an “enchanted circle”. It is horrible to look at, but it is necessary to overcome the fear and take a look, so that in the event it ever awakes in us we would know where we are and how to get out of it … Provided, it is altogether possible to get out of it with our way of thinking.
Director Marija Simona Šimulynaitė
The set for the installation was greatly influenced by the extraordinary space of the Column Hall of the Trade Unions’ House. Sets are based on the visual “game” of the objects that produce sounds, the transformations thereof and the movement of these objects, altering the atmosphere of the space. The performers’ costumes represent a mix of chromatic aesthetics, “psychedelics”, avant-garde, non-traditional forms and imagery of other worlds/galaxies.
Set and costume designer Vita Eidimtaitė