Sigutė Stonytė

Many years ago Sigutė Stonytė, just like the founders of the VCO, chose to stay in Lithuania despite the fact that she could have made it to the world’s major opera houses. It was here that she has performed many leading dramatic and lyric soprano roles, for which she has been awarded the country’s highest artistic honours, and has continued to work as an unparalleled mentor to a future generations of singers. Her extensive professional experience, strong personality and acute sense of humour were the winning features for her nomination as the only candidate to portray a different version of Larina in the VCO’s production of Onegin. The company decided to change the locale of the classic Russian play to kommunalka and use the shortened version of the original title for its production of Tchaikovsky’s opera. Thus Mme Larina, the mother of Tatyana, a girl wounded by rejection of an arrogant youth, was turned into a recognisable prototype of the Soviet manageress of consumer goods warehouse. Sigutė alone could endow this character with the well-earned and not shallow ‘diva’ status but transgressing the stereotypical image of the ‘merited artist,’ by lighting up a Belomorkanal cigarette on stage.