IGNIS ET FIDES

The famouse Lithuanian composer Bronius Kutavicius has premiered his latest opera/oratorio/ballet Ignis et Fides. It happend in fact this summer inside the beautiful castle in Trakai. This week it was time for the first indoor production, 9th. and 10th. october at The National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius. By Henning Hoholt Photo: Mikhail Rashkovsky The first premiere also marked the opening of the Gaida New Music Festival in Vilnius, which will run for 12 days untillthe 20th october, with celebrity guests from The Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britten, and leading Lithuanian musicians and groups. Ignis et Fides is presented in a kind of an oratorio form, but maked as a complete stage production, with a reduced kind of action, some of it very dramatic. I must admit that I liked that style very much. Bronius Kutavicius is a good composer. He knows how to make music to performances in a big scale, as we earlier has seen at the operahouse here in Vilnius, and later heard on Cd his opera Lokys (The Bear). This new opera is in the same style, but here it is a commitment from The Lithuanian State to mr Kutavicius to make an opera to celebrate the 750 years jubilee of the coronation of the first Lithuanian King Mindaugas, in 1253. It is built up as an oratorio, but to help the performance moving on stage, and not only, by letting the choire move around in processions, several parts are lifted up by the actions and deliciously maked choreography to 18 dancers + one soloist as a dancing Shaman, 9 of them male in read flame costumes  + the Shaman, who also are singing a few lines, 9 female in white dresses as the choire. This idea is doing that the performance is mowing on stage, and it is very well done. Director is Jonas Vaitkus. The scenography and the costumes are by Jonas Arcikauskas, and the moving choreography, which also is helping the choire to move so well is by Aira Nagineviciute. Martinus STASKUS was conductor and in the leading roles, with not so much to sing, Giedius Zalys as king Mindaugas, Laima Jonutyte as queen Morta, and as the Cantor Mindaugas Zimkus. Henning Hoholt, hoeholthus@c2i.net

ONDINE Records have presented the opera LOKYS by Bronius Kutavicius in an excellent version with the Lithuanian National Opera. This CD is very representativ for mr. Kutavicius style of composing, and is highly recommended. Hopefully LOKYS on CD will be followed up by IGNIS et FIDES on CD too. In the spring, we had the pleasure of wieving the opera LOKYS in Vilnius. To hear it on CD gives a very good impression of the work.