November 24, Thursday, 6:30 PM

November 16, Wednesday, 6:30 PM

a ballet in 2 acts

Choreographer Kirill Simonov (Russia)
Music Director and Conductor Robertas Šervenikas
Set Designer Emil Kapeliush (Russia)
Costume Designer Stefanija Chanalda Graurogkaite

Emotional as much as it is conceptual, this contemporary ballet created by composer Anatolijus Senderovas and a young choreographer Kirill Simonov, is a third national work staged to the commission of the Vilnius Festival. Inspired by Shakespeare’s passionate drama, Senderovas’ music displays an inventive yet subtle orchestral palette and saturates the performance with mystery and enchanting beauty.

Following recommendations of the composer and the producers, Simonov took the liberty in retelling the classical tragedy in the voice of Desdemona, the more so that the company had an ideal candidate for the role, prima ballerina Egle Spokaite. Treating the piece as a dream, the choreographer sets out to put together episodes of impassionate intensity, yet occasionally independent plot- and meaning-wise, in a kaleidoscope-like manner. Even though not essentially new to contemporary dance, this dramaturgical principle seems absolutely plausible here, making for a compelling dance performance in two parts.

Première: 22 May 2005
Running time: 2 hrs

November 13, Sunday, 12:00 PM

Ballet in 3 acts for children
Libretto by P. Abolimov after Korney Tchiukovsky’s story

Choreography by Mikhail Moiseyev and Klavdiya Salnikova
Renewed version by Česlovas Žebrauskas
Renewed Choreography by Leokadija Askelovičiūtė, Liana Dislere, Borisas Martinkevičius, Aleksandras Semionovas, Lidija Tamulevičienė

Conductor Alvydas Šulčys
Set Designer Danute Ūsaite
Costume Designer Liucija Carneckaite

Premiere: 2 November 1978; production renewed in 1992

A funny ballet for children about the kind-hearted doctor Ouchaches and his trip to Africa to cure ill monkeys. There he was entrapped by the wicked pirates’ chief Barmaley. Fortunately, he manages to escape coming back to his friends, alive and well.

Performance running time: 2h 15min

November 12, Saturday, 6:30 PM, December 14, Wednesday, 6:30 PM

An opera in 4 acts (2 parts), sung in Italian with Lithuanian and English surtitles

Music Director and Conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius
Conductor Martynas Staškus
Director Eimuntas Nekrošius
Set Designer Marius Nekrošius
Costume Designer Nadežda Gultiajeva
Lighting Designer Levas Kleinas
Chorus Master Česlovas Radžiūnas

Premiere: 18 March, 2011

G. Verdi's masterpiece "Otello" was presented to the public on 5 February, 1887, and immediately turned into an exclusive social event and national triumph of Italy. La Scala was overcrowded with people representing all classes of Milan society, including all the Italian notabilities in the city or who could get here. Journalists and critics from all quarters of Europe were in attendance, with the managers of the chief European theatres and opera houses. No more critical or intellectual audience was ever brought together in La Scala to approve or condemn a new opera.

Librettist Arrigo Boito remained faithful to Shakespeare’s text, however, his libretto is an independent drama, created according to all of the main principles of the Wagnerian reform. Boito omitted the first part of the tragedy and started with the second. The librettist also introduced a few potent changes - having sacrificed a few scenes for the sake of the musical flow, he replaced them with effective episodes of his own. The perfect libretto was a solid background for the birth of the unique opera.

The current LNOBT's production of "Otello" was prepared by masters of their craft - conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius, director Eimuntas Nekrošius, set designer Marius Nekrošius and costume designer Nadežda Gultiajeva. This most mature of all Verdi‘s creations is a jewel that enriches repertoires of the best theatres in the world, and it has been produced several times in our theatre.

“I hadn’t listened to the opera all the way through until I was asked to direct it. My first impression: this is the least interesting of all operas that Verdi wrote. Maybe it was because I knew his other operas better. After a while, however, I realised this is his most sublime creative achievement.”
~ Director Eimuntas Nekrošius

November 9, Wednesday, 6:30 PM, December 2, Friday, 6:30 PM

A ballet in 3 acts

Libretto by Mihail Chemiakin after E. Th. A. Hoffmann's tale “The Sandman“

Music Director and Conductor Robertas Šervenikas
Conductor Alvydas Šulčys
Choreographer Kirill Simonov (Russia)
Set and Costume Designer Mihail Chemiakin (USA)
Lighting Designer Levas Kleinas

Premiere: 21 May, 2011

Running time: 3 hrs

Three acts of magic, comical confusion and mistaken identity, also filled with the turmoil of Romanticism and spectacular visuals - all of this enchants the audiences for over 140 years. Coppélia, just as a number of other popular works, is produced by many choreographers around the world, who never fail to introduce innovative individual versions and editions. Floating from comedy to tragedy, coming closer or running away from E. T. A. Hoffman‘s Der Sandmann, it is still one of the most often produced ballets. Most of the ballet's drama centers on the character of Doctor Coppélius. Over the many decades his portrayal has ranged from a dark sorcerer to an eccentric, and somewhat ridiculous, old man. He's been seen as lonely, a man of science who has, perhaps, a warped idea of reality. Paradoxically, while this character is willing to remove the life from a young man in order to instill life in a doll, he's generally seen as a comic figure.

Many of contemporary productions of Coppélia are based on Petipa’s version that followed Saint-Léon’s original edition with great respect and was introduced in Saint Petersburg in 1884. In 1894 Enrico Cecchetti and Lev Ivanov edited this production - the elements of their version are still very much alive even in our days.

This newest production of Coppélia probably will not remind us of any other Lithuanian versions of this ballet. The libretto was newly rewritten by choreographer Kirill Simonov (Russia) and designer Mihail Chemiakin (USA), who is also a passionate researched of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s works. According to the will of these two artists, the ballet turns into the story of Sandman, told in tune with L. Délibes’ score which is enhanced with excerpts from Sylvia - this additional music is used to bring forth the dramatic characters of the story. Seeing naïve romantic jokes is unlikely in this production. This ballet, just as Hoffmann’s legacy, invites us to step into the world of mysticism, suspicion, surrealism and fantasy.

October 29, Saturday, 6:30 PM

October 23, Sunday, 12:00 PM

Ballet in 3 acts for children

Libretto by N.Volkov after Charles Perrault's fairy tale
Renewed version by Enno Suve

Conductors Alvydas Šulčys
Choreographer Enno Suve (Estonia)
Designer Eldor Renter (Estonia)

Premiere: 8 March 1994

Performance of the M. K. Ciurlionis National School of Arts Ballet Section

Performance running time: 2h 15min

October 22, Saturday, 6:30 PM, November 18, Friday, 6:30 PM

Ballet in 4 acts

Choreographer Marius Petipa
Stage choreographers Altynai Asylmuratova, Liudmila Kovaliova (Russia)
Designer Viaceslav Okunev (Russia)
Conductor Martynas Staškus

Premiere: 31 December, 2007

“The choreography of “La Bayadère” is considered to be the first expression of grand scale symphonism in dance, predating by seventeen years Ivanov’s masterly designs for the definitive Swan Lake (...). Ballets passed down the generations like legends, acquire patina of ritualism, but “La Bayadère” is a ritual, a poem about dancing and memory and time. Each dance seems to add something new to the previous one, like a language being learned. The ballet grows heavy with this knowledge, which at the beginning had been only a primordial utterance, and in the coda it fairly bursts with articulate splendor."

Arlene Croce, The New Yorker

Petipa constructed his ballet La Bayadère on a strong Romantic base using his own type of classical aesthetic. There are several typical Romantic features in this ballet – India is an exotic country, a very suitable space of action for all romantics, taking part in the performance are the ethereal beings, the whole theme of the ballet is typically romantic – selfless, overwhelming bayadère Nikiya’s love, love as the highest meaning and expression of life. The essence of La Bayadère’s plot is classical Indian literature, namely Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala and Goethe’s poem The God and the Bayadere. These poetic works served as basics for more than one creation – before M. Petipa, such dramaturges as Augustin Eugène Scribe, Theofil Gautier, choreographers Charles Didelot, Filippo Taglioni and others, based their works on this special story.

Libretto for La Bayadère was written by Petipa himself and Sergej Chudekov, in this ballet there are certain typically melodramatic twists of the plot merged with the dramatic qualities of a romantic ballet. The music, written by Ludwig Aloisius Minkus, thanks to its rhythmical versatility and emotionality created a perfect background for a vivid, fiery work of theatrical art. However, the original artistic quality of La Bayadère (which was in no way lowered by later Petipa’s ballets, based on P. Tchaikovsky’s or A. Glazunov’s music) was based in the high-class choreography and poetic generalizations which it displayed. La Bayadère can be described as a certain encyclopaedia of symphonized forms of the classical dance.

In Lithuania La Bayadère has not been staged. In 2006, as a prelude to this premiere, LNOBT presented Shadows as a separate production (stage choreographer Ninella Kurgapkina, designer Viaceslav Okunev, conductor Robertas Servenikas).

October 12, Wednesday, 6:30 PM, December 15, Thursday, 6:30 PM

A ballet in 2 acts to the music by S. Vainiūnas, A. Malcys, H. M. Górecki and other composers

Choreography and Libretto by Anželika Cholina

Music Director and Conductor Robertas Šervenikas

Set Designer Marijus Jacovskis

Costume Designer Juozas Statkevičius

Lighting Designer Tadas Valeika

Chorus Master Česlovas Radžiūnas

Première: 27 May, 2011

Barbora Radvilaitė is one of our most popular historical personalities. Withdrawn to her own intimate world of secret emotions and having no political aspirations, she still managed to create turmoil in the society of her day, leaving a deep trace in history simply by living her quiet life.

The surviving letters of Barbora Radvilaitė reveal that she was probably the only woman in Poland and Lithuania that could lay her thoughts on paper with such intelligence and grace. Barbora was not only exquisitely beautiful and charming, but also an intelligent, well-educated lady of the Renaissance, who could handle every topic during a conversation. She loved to play chess and was interested in hunting. Her letters show us that Barbora had a wide array of interests that overstepped boundaries of what was accepted as usual activities of the noble women of her time.

Barbora Radvilaitė is probably best characterized by the words given in the epitaph - she helped many people and no one can say that one was hurt by this woman.

"Never before have I felt such responsibility and been so uplifted while producing a theatre performance; after all, the love story of Barbora and Žygimantas Augustas that blossomed in Lithuania, is the only story in the whole world telling us about the royal love as it is - genuine, sorrowful and controversial. (...) I am creating live theatrical action through a gentle idealization of the love story, slightly personalized interpretation of facts and two points of view, that of Lithuanian historians and my own feminine vision. When it comes to theatre I’m not really interested in finding a modern form for the production - the main thing is always the action itself, where fates of people are closely intertwined."