About
“Vilnius City Opera” is a company of free-thinking artists formed in 2006, when director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius and artist Juozas Statkevičius joined their forces to create a production of G. Puccini's opera “La bohème”, which received great acclaim throughout the country.
The legendary story of the first “Bohemians” has very human beginnings. At some point in time, Dalia, Gintaras, and Juozas had been creators who were enjoying recognition and support abroad, however, at home they had to start things from scratch. Having realized that the time has come, the creators took the bull by the horns. They knew how hard and sometimes simply impossible it was for young artists to find a place for themselves in the rigidly traditional genre of opera, therefore, instead of introducing them one by one they came up with the idea of forming a whole generation of opera singers that with their explosive energy could shake up its predecessors by its own elemental force.
It all started with the aspiration to have young people singing the parts of 20 year-olds on stage which was against old tradition, to provide support to those artists who strive to seek perfection abroad, and to spread the message that those away will always have a place to come back to. “Bohemians” often call themselves a family not only because of their close relationship, but also because from the very beginning they aimed at creating not an institution, but rather a home - a space for growth, a place which one can leave and then always feel welcome to return to. Most importantly, here everyone had their own distinct journey without being compared to famous relatives or colleagues. The main goal was to nurture soloists as personalities, to cultivate not only their vocal, but also acting theatric skills, bringing them closer to the audience.
And thus “Bohemians” became the cover faces of magazines, their posters were the first to appear on public transport, they were the first in Lithuania’s repertory system to introduce the so-called “block programing” where a certain performance is shown 4-5 times for one week in a year. Not to mention the fact that after becoming a producer, D. Ibelhauptaitė began staging the biggest opera productions in a concert hall without a theater stage and with private funding. D. Ibelhauptaitė managed to revive arts patronage which has very old roots in the history of Lithuania. Today we might speak about a century of opera in Lithuania, but let’s not forget the fact that the first opera staged in Lithuania was introduced on the personal initiative of king
Władysław IV Vasa who was an opera lover and arts patron.
To this day, VCO has been operating without its own stage and on minimal government subsidies, however, it not only manages to retain the creative nucleus and high level, but also brings in many more new faces. The trio’s aspiration to introduce the audience to young and new opera in every sense of the word is not waning. Today the main roles performed by young and extremely talented soloists are supplemented by additional voices of the even younger VCO ensemble which consists of still-studying vocalists. They all are united by the “Bohemians” school.
Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, who had spent her teenage years in the Lithuanian State Youth Theater during its prime together with Dalia Tamulevičiūtė and Eimuntas Nekrošius, graduated from GITIS (Russian Academy of Theater Arts), and created performances and received recognition in London and New York, eventually became the only opera director in Lithuania who had not only founded her own theater, but also helped to raise a whole generation of internationally acclaimed soloists.
The aim of the VCO is to change people's attitudes towards opera and classical music
Board
Arvydas Avulis
Jonas Garbaravičius
Asmik Grigorian
Dalia Ibelhauptaitė
Vilius Kavaliauskas
Tomas Kučinskas
Bjornar Lund
Laimonas Pautienius
Edgaras Montvidas
Sigutė Stonytė
Rolandas Valiūnas
Rolandas Viršilas
Antanas Juozas Zabulis
VCO’s mission - to promote spiritual development and knowledge of music by acquainting the public with contemporary interpretations of world-famous operatic music, which is rarely performed in Lithuania, performed by specially assembled soloists gathered from around the world, and newly developed talents
MISSION – ALTERNATIVE
MUSICOLOGIST VERONIKA JANATJEVA is INTERVIEWED BY SIGITA IVAŠKAITĖ
When I was going through the historical television footage and the vast personal archives of the creators, a thought came to mind: isn’t it surprising, how many of us have already forgotten the fact that the pioneers of this whole movement – Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, Gintaras Rinkevičius and Juozas Statkevičius – were once themselves, the undiscovered young artists who were only praised abroad? And how not everybody was waiting for them back home with their arms wide open. How often were they asked this question: why did you come back, what do you need here, if they love you abroad? Such personal experience not only contributed to the initial idea, but also to the transformation of the whole attitude towards young or "returned from abroad" creators in Lithuania. In this way, a materially intangible home was created, where this young and different generation of opera singers found their place. But how would Veronika Janatjeva tell the story of VCO?
Veronika Janatjeva: Without hesitation I would sign the statement repeated by many critics, praising the almost perfect selection of voices and their types for VCO performances, sensitively accompanied by the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gintaras Rinkevičius. Listening to such high-level soloists and their ensembles on the Lithuanian opera stage is an incomparable pleasure. Not all theaters can provide such joy to the audience - and not only because of financial constraints or a lack of professional artists, but mainly because of the repertory or full-time nature of work, which suppresses even the most daring creative ambitions.
In this case, D. Ibelhauptaitė, the sole director and main producer, is responsible for almost all the artistic decisions of the company, and, each time her choices surprise with clarity of staging ideas and, most importantly, a versatile revelation of talented artists. She knows people very well: their nature, characters, vocal features and knows how to put them together to make it work.
ONE OF THE LEAST KNOWN SECRETS OF THE OPERA WORLD
ANDREW MELLOR
Why did the Lithuanian opera-lover cross the road? It‘s not the start of a bad joke. The Answer is: to see opera presented by an independent – minded company, that has a stylish, ambitious approach. Vilnius City Opera (VCO) presents fully staged operas in a bunker-like concert hall, opposite the state-funded Lithuanian National Opera, housed in its retro-chic 1970s opera house. Founded in 2006 by the Lithuanian-born theatre director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, VCO has since mounted 14 new productions. It presents six week-long runs per season and each season includes at least one new production.
There is a lot that is unusual about VCO: its orchestra is the relatively recently formed Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra while its chorus is the professional Kaunas City Choir, augmented by students and recent graduates from the Lithuanian Academy of Music. More remarkable is its consistent use of first-rate soloists. Lithuania has produced an extraordinary crop of fine singers in the last two decades, few of whom make it into the National Opera‘s ensemble.
Which brings us to VCO‘s casting strategy. The company picks talented Lithuanian singers about to emerge internationally while inviting locals-made-good back to their homeland, taking advantage of short, project-by-project runs and the fact, that they might want to visit home (it‘s hard to imagine competitive fees). Evidently, it works. Many come to VCO to prepare roles, visit home or participate in a nourishing dramatic experiment in between appearances at the world‘s biggest houses.
That experiment is born of Ibelhauptaitė‘s unusual training and ethos. She was schooled with Stanislavskian rigour at the prestigious Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow, before moving to London to work at the National Theatre, RSC, the Royal Court and in film (in Britain she met her husband, the actor-director Dexter Fletcher). Dalia was lured to opera by British impresario Adam Pollock, and her directorial debut in the opera “Don Giovanni” took place at his Batignano Festival in Tuscany. Richard Jones, these days rather eminent in his field, was in charge of the other opera that year, and gave Ibelhauptaitė guidance on the specifics of opera directing while the two washed the dishes each night after dinner.
Ibelhauptaitė has lived in London for nearly three decades, but the impulse to start her own company came from a need to reconnect with her homeland. ‘I was rehearsing one day in New York, and I thought, I‘m never going to change anybody‘s life here,‘ she recalls. ‘I saw so many talented singers from Lithuania who had few opportunities to sing there. I also thought I could combine my Eastern European training with American-style method acting and cinematography to develop a new dramatic language for opera. I wanted lots of drama, lots of action, but realist acting rather than an abstract operatic style.’
The central dramatic ideology of VCO is that the same is expected of singers as would be of stage actors. The dramatic, cinematographic realism she (Ibelhauptaitė) craves works well in the Vilnius Congress and Concert Hall, where a wide stage and shallow auditorium mean nobody in the
VCO has changed the landscape of opera in Lithuania, and not just for singers. ‘From the start we were getting a completely different audience,’ says Ibelhauptaitė. ‘We were the first theatre organization in Lithuania to advertise on buses and in newspapers. I visited all the major lifestyle magazines and insisted the editors put our stars on their covers or give me a good reason why not. We got three covers in advance of our first show, La bohéme back in 2006. For me, opera has to be current cool and sexy. If it isn’t, we won’t have an audience in 30 years.’
Ibelhauptaitė‘s methods, including her personal efforts raising funds from among Vilnius‘s business community (only 10 percent of VCO‘s income comes from the state), ruffled feather. But what goes around comes around. She and Gintaras Rinkevičius were offered the dual directorship of the Lithuanian National Opera recently but turned the opportunity down. ’We still have a lot of fire in us to be the alternative,’ she says, ‘We have been a mystery for 12 years, but now I am not afraid of people coming from anywhere in the world to see us. I don ‘t think the style of our work will change, because it‘s unique in the opera world to develop work in the way we do.‘
Created according to: Opera, 2018 June; Opera Now, 2019 February.
VCO values are an energetic, free creative phenomenon that penetrates undiscovered spaces and the hearts of original thinkers. We are open to the world and invite those who, like us, seek and want to join us
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