The Klaipėda National Music Theatre, awaiting its inauguration in a new building, will continue its tour around Lithuania. The theatre welcomes its 37th season with a tour of Lithuania, an unexpected version of Donizetti’s opera “The Elixir of Love”, and preparations for the inauguration in the new building.
“The 37th season will present a version of Donizetti’s opera “The Elixir of Love” that was unexpected even to me – reduced, chamber, educational and, of course, suitable for touring. Director Karina Novikova has given it a new and very interesting reading. And the presentation of the opera will be unconventional: we are used to first presenting the premiere and then going on tour. This time, however, it will be the other way around. “The Elixir of Love” will start its stage life with community meetings and discussions, and will be presented to the public on the chamber stage in November. Many tours of the new opera are planned to the farthest corners and festivals of Lithuania. Wandering around the country is a daily routine and natural state of Klaipėda National Musical Theatre, which is “homeless”, and we will devote even more time and attention to it in autumn. The KNMT project – the cycle of small performances “Hello, Opera! Hi, dance!”. The 37th season of the theatre will traditionally start on 1 October with a symphonic music concert. This will be the last season we will welcome away from home, as the reconstruction of the KNMT building will be completed at the end of December. The full repertoire for 2024 is already planned, as is the most important event of next year – the opening of the new KNMT building, which I believe will take place at the end of March!” – says Laima Vilimiene, Head of Klaipėda National Music Theatre.
Performances will tour around Lithuania
Eduardas Balkis’ ballet “Egle the Serpent Queen”, staged by choreographer Martynas Rimeikis and awarded with the „Golden Cross of the Stage” and the “Gratitude Mask”, is a true favourite of the audience. In the autumn, “Egle the Serpent Queen”, as part of the cycle of small performances “Hello, Opera! Hi, dance!” will delight fans at the Cultural Centre in Biržai (20 September) and the Cultural Centre in Utena (21 September).
A fun and unexpected gift for the little ones will be the presentation of the dance performance “The True Story of Dinosaurs” by choreographer Ausra Krasauskaite and composer Kristijonas Lucinskas at the Palanga Kurhaus Hall (24 September). One of the newest performances for children – an educational version of the opera “Pinocchio” by J. Gaizauskas – will be enjoyed by the small audience of Mažeikiai (21 October).
The small performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s comic opera “The Daughter of the Regiment” will be presented in Rokiškis on 16 November and in Utena on 17 November.
Concerts
The new season will traditionally open with a concert by the Klaipėda National Theatre Symphony Orchestra. Under the baton of the Chief Conductor Tomas Ambrozaitis on 1 October the concert of the symphony orchestra under his direction will take place on the stage of the Klaipėda Concert Hall of the Faculty of Music and Theatre of the Lithuanian Academy, dedicated to the opening of the 37th season and the International Music Day.
Traditionally, as we approach All Souls’ Day, the KNMT Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Tomas Ambrozaitis will invite you to a sacred music concert “Lux perpetua”.
Education and dedications
Educational events and performances are an important part of the KNMT repertoire. Educational versions of well-known performances and educational events are welcome to all interested young and senior fans of musical theatre.
On 11 October and 22 November you are invited to the educational event “Getting to know the dance performances “Dreams and Cactuses” at the Fishermen’s Palace, and on 12 October and 23 November to the dance performance “Dreams and Cactuses”.
On 13 October, Antonín Dvořák’s opera “The Mermaid” will be presented at an educational event dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the birth of Mikas Petrauskas, the author of the first Lithuanian opera “Birutė”, and on the evening of 14 October, the opera will be performed in its entirety.
On 26 October, the audience will be treated to an educational event “Getting to know the opera “The Bear”, and on 27 October to a full opera dedicated to the 220th anniversary of the birth of Prospero Mérimée. On 14 November, an educational event “Getting to know the comic opera “The Daughter of the Regiment”, and on 15 November, the full performance. 5 December: educational event “Getting to know the operetta “Orpheus in Hell’”, 6 December: full performance.
“Roof Tearing Off” artwork
On 2 and 3 December, the premiere of Donizetti’s educational opera “The Elixir of Love” will take place at the Fishermen’s Palace. The singing will be performed by many of the theatre’s new soloists, who are preparing to captivate the audience with their youthful energy and desire to create. The director of the production is Carmelo Giuseppe Longo, an Italian-born conductor who is very close to this music by Donizetti. The production team also includes costume designer Auguste Zukaite and choreographer Daria Verovka. The young creators have sensed the style and the humour of the work, and we are looking forward to an “aesthetically pleasing,but also furiously comic premier”.
“Real Southern Italian experiences and the passions of human relationships! I really like the themes of Donizetti’s comic opera “Elixir of Love”. It is a love story of young people, or rather the intersection of two approaches to relationships, which is like a painful engine pushing the whole plot forward and taking it in unexpected directions. The opera, written in 1832, sounds as if it were taken from the notes of a contemporary psychotherapist or a “Netflix” series. At the same time, the music is full of material that frees the imagination and is not tied to realism and domesticity. And that is very freeing for the imagination. So I hope to invite the audience to a „roof tearing” evening with a Georgian wedding, bright colours and a sensitive love story”, says director Karina Novikova.
For the little ones
The little ones will also be delighted: on 29 October, 25 November and 3 December, the Theatre Hall of the Fishermen’s Palace will stage the dance performance “The True Story of Dinosaurs” by choreographer Ausra Krasauskaite and composer Kristijonas Lucinskis. It opens the door to children’s knowledge of the Solar System, introduces them to the curious and fearless dinosaurs and reveals the real reason for their extinction.
On 4 November, the opera “Pinocchio” by J. Gaizauskas will be performed, for which tickets disappear as mysteriously as the golden key to the fairy tale.
Audience favourites
In autumn 2023, the repertoire of Klaipėda National Music Theatre would inevitably be the subject of public outrage if Jerry Bock’s popular musical “Fiddler on the Roof” did not return to the stage (26 November, to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the composer’s birth, and on 10 December) and the equally popular comic tale of monastic life in Dan Goggin’s musical “The Shawshank” (15 October), as well as the dance performances “Egle the Serpent’s Queen” (8 December) and, new to the festival, “Don Quixote” (11 November).
Celebrating the pleasures of life, the heroes of Jacques Offenbach’s operetta “Orpheus in Hell” are ready to make the audience cheerful for the New Year: the performance will be staged at the Fishermen’s Palace on 30 December.
KNMT inf.