“Absorptio: A Work for Two Opera Houses” is a contemporary opera and a commentary on opera culture. The audience here becomes a part of the work and experiences recognizable but at the same time alien social situations. Participants are invited to rethink what it means to “go to the opera” or listen to it, and a guide who navigates small groups of viewers through the performance of the piece helps them not to get lost in the piece.
“Absorptio” is a non-existent word that describes the creative context and its multiplicity. Being interactive, the work incorporates the social environment and other adjacent, related elements, combining the fields of contemporary music, opera, and contemporary art. The aspect of the two opera houses unfolds through the event space, which is a kind of antipode of “high culture”. “Opera Social House” is a building standing next to the theatre and indirectly related to the opera; it once belonged to the theatre – today it houses a modern bar intervention.
Both buildings of the opera house are brought to life in the work – they comment on each other, thus also getting involved in the city's events.
The work is like a dialogue between two opera houses; its dramaturgy echoes the logic of ambition, success and the pursuit of heights, the creation and consumption of art. Spectators of the performance are interactively involved in the action in different spaces. Its audio material is a soundtrack heard through headphones. The finale of the piece is performed live.
“Absorptio” arose out of an impulse to comment on the situation of opera and consider the role of (contemporary) opera in today's culture and culture industry, while engaging narratives related to the circulation of art.
The composer of the piece is Dominykas Digimas, who won the “Golden Cross of the Stage” award for the music for theatre; the director of the piece, Agnė Ambrozaitytė, is a young creator specializing in opera, who works in both Lithuanian and foreign opera productions. The author of the dramaturgy and concept is Edvardas Šumila, a philosopher and curator working in the fields of contemporary art and music. The scenography is created by Dainius Liškevičius, laureate of the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize, and costumes by Morta Nakaitė, a fashion designer with a conceptual and poetic vision.
Director Agnė Ambrozaitytė
Dramaturg Edvardas Šumila
Composer Dominykas Digimas
Set Designer Dainius Liškevičius
Costume Designer Morta Nakaitė
Film and Editing Director Kornelijus Jaroševičius
Conductor Karolis Variakojis
Cameramen: Vaidas Užkuraitis, Kostas Kazlauskas, Kornelijus Jaroševičius, Donatas Sauleika, Deimantas Kučinskas
Lighting Designer: Dainius Urbonis
Graphic Designer: Simonas Kotovas
Soloists: Gabrielė Bukinė (soprano), Karolis Kašiuba (tenor)
Participants: Žilvinas Andriušis, Arūnas Bronušas, Aliona Malikėnienė, Laurynas Aksamitas, Kristina Morta Paškevičiūtė, Rytis Zemkauskas, LNOBT symphony orchestra
Voices (recorded): Inga Valinskienė, Marijus Žiedas
Producers: Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, “Operomanija”
Partner: “Opera Social House”
Sponsors: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian Council of Culture, Vilnius City Municipality
The opera was created in the context of the joint contemporary opera project “Opera Genome” between the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre and “Operomanija” in 2021–2024.
