Opera Confessions was inspired by its creators’ interest in spatial electronics, and in particular – the spatial acoustic sound and its impact on imagination. They have decided to create a spatial opera in the dark, focussing on the possibilities offered by the acoustic surroundings. The Christian idea of the seven deadly sins lies at the basis of the libretto.
The seven parts of the Confessions are concerned with the seven cardinal sins – lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. Confessions unites the authors’ long-cherished ideas of creative experiments: performance of music in the dark, involving other senses (smell, touch) and allegedly completely removing the visual aspect. However, the latter becomes the most activated factor in the listener’s imagination – through abstract soundscapes and specific pre-recorded sounds that produce strong imagery linked to feelings, sensations or objects.
In 2016 the opera received the Golden Stage Cross award for the best music. It was also awarded the Nail of the Year prize (Public Sympathy category) established by the Lithuanian Composers’ Union. Opera was presented at various concert venues, theatres and festivals in Lithuania, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia and Great Britain.
Confessions is over an hour long challenge to place-time-sound-sense experience and its limits, i.e. the theatre of senses and imagination, when the relationship between spectator-viewer and the observed-performer is reversed: face covering mask here belongs to the viewer, who voluntarily waives his/her ability to see.
Rima Jūraitė, Teatro žurnalas
The viewers are balancing between increased alertness due to corporeal experiences and the dream induced by the raging imagination.
Gražina Montvidaitė, 7 meno dienos
Sometimes, despite the “switched-off” vision, the performance might result in an overload of sensations. People heavily rely on vision in their everyday life, so when they lose it a natural sense of insecurity arises, along with increased alertness and vulnerability.
Julia Weber, musikultur.com
In an unbroken continuity of sound and action Confessions maintains a chameleonic approach to style, blending passages of music that echo 19th-century grand opera with elements of wholly contemporary noise music.
Neil Luck, The Drama Review
Hard to describe sounds, noise and musical passages caress and attack, tempt and amaze the ear, stimulating imagination to create diverse, though not always the most pleasant or comfortable images (those are sins, after all).
Goda Dapšytė, 370