Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911) had a deep understanding of the significance and importance of the opera genre within the broader cultural landscape. In January 1906, he wrote to his brother Povilas (even before the premiere of the first national opera—Mikas Petrauskas’s *Birutė*): “Are you familiar with the Lithuanian national movement? I am determined to dedicate all my past and future works to Lithuania. We are learning the Lithuanian language, and I am preparing to write a Lithuanian opera.” In this way, the composer singled out the opera as a particularly significant form of expression for the identity of national musical culture.
The idea of creating a Lithuanian opera became a concrete goal for M. K. Čiurlionis after he met a young writer, Sofija Kymantaitė, who later became his wife. By the summer of 1908, the opera’s subject matter had already been determined. The opera was to be based on the legend “The Queen of the Baltic Sea,” created around 1830 by the Lithuanian literary figure, ethnographer, folklorist, writer, historian, and translator Liudvikas Adomas Jucevičius. The surviving sketches of M. K. Čiurlionis’s set designs and correspondence regarding the libretto Sofija was preparing clearly indicate that they were based on this version of the legend about the love of Jūratė and Kastytis.
From the correspondence, we know that Sofija had completed the libretto and sent it to St. Petersburg, where Konstantinas was staying at the time. We also know that while there, the composer spent a considerable amount of time at the piano with the libretto, searching for the right sound for *Jūratė*. Having already familiarized himself with the libretto, Konstantinas wrote to Sofija about the musical language and staging concepts of the future opera: “I like *Jūratė* more and more each time, and today I already heard a little of the music in it. <…> Zose, Zose, advise me. Should I avoid folk melodies in it, or not? Should I take technical difficulties into account, or not? Because when you think that our people are so poor and have nothing, it pains me that this work, too, will pass them by—and yet you and I want to give them something. You understand me, Zosele, that I don’t want to compromise myself; I just want to set myself a more challenging task. I want it to be possible to perform it even in Warsaw, and in time, in Vilnius as well, but a lot of water will flow under the bridge before then.”.
It becomes clear from the letters that the composer already had a clear and detailed vision of the opera’s opening and the first scene—the order in which the characters would appear, the arrangement of the operatic numbers, the sequence in which the choral parts enter, and similar details—yet none of this was ever written down or preserved in musical notation. From 1906 to 1909, when the composer was considering the possibility of creating an opera, Čiurlionis’s works from that period—most of which have survived only as sketches— reveal a highly diverse and subtle artistic world, dominated by seascape imagery and interweaving fragments of folk songs, attesting to compositional strategies that were very bold for that time. These sketches and fragments reveal just how deeply Čiurlionis was immersed in his planned Lithuanian opera *Jūratė*.
Based on these sketches and fragments, the ideas preserved in the Čiurlionis’ letters, set design sketches, and using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to generate musical material, a large creative team has brought to life the imagined opera *Jūratė* by M. K. Čiurlionis—a dream that Konstantinas himself never had the chance to realize.
The opera tells the legend of Jūratė, the queen of the seas, whose amber palace stands at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Jūratė falls in love with a man of the land—the brave and humble fisherman Kastytis, who defies the will of the gods and fishes in the sacred waters of the sea, forbidden to mortals.
The gods, especially the mighty Perkūnas, are enraged by the forbidden love between the divine queen and a mortal man. He strikes Jūratė’s amber palace with lightning, shattering it and separating the lovers. Kastytis drowns in the stormy sea, while Jūratė is condemned to weep eternally for her lost love and to wash her amber tears onto the shores of the Baltic Sea. It is true that Čiurlionis wanted his opera to be a work open to interpretation and perhaps a testament to eternal love, which is why, as he had intended, the “Eternal Duet” is heard in the imagined finale of *Jūratė*.
Historical Consultant: Rokas Zubovas
Composers: Mantautas Krukauskas, Arvydas Malcys, Mykolas Natalevičius
Assistant Director: Gina Busko
Opera libretto translated into English by Julius Keleras
Producer: “Operomanija”
Co-producer: Vilnius Old Theater
Partners: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, Klaipėda Puppet Theater, “Naujasis teatras,” Lithuanian Composers’ Union
