Attention! The performance scheduled for March 15 has been rescheduled for November 28 at 6:00 p.m.
refunded. To request a refund, audience members must contact us by email at
[email protected] within 14 business
days of the rescheduled event date.
Panevėžys Musical Theater’s Tour in Klaipėda
When the Man returned to the Bird,
the Bird, in turn, went to the Man.
The opera-poem “The Thrush—A Green Bird,” reveals the subtle poetic power of words, the invigorating force of nature and love, the beauty of music, and the importance of national history.
The image of Strazdelis (Antanas Strazdas-Drazdauskas), a peasant bard, born from the metaphor of wings, the poet’s bird-like surname, and his distinctive personality is transformed in director Jonas Vaitkus’s production into the character of the Bird-Man. Through various elements of expression, dance, folklore, and traditional hymns, the performance explores the union of man and woman, the depths of the spirit, the boundaries between nature and humanity, and the meaning of existence.
In the fall of 2023, *The Thrush—The Green Bird* was revived in Bronius Kutavičius’s hometown, at the Panevėžys Musical Theater. As with the premiere, the production was directed by Jonas Vaitkus. This time, the opera-poem is performed live, without recorded music. The music director is Imantas Jonas Šimkus, a talented conductor of the younger generation.
First, Sigitas Geda wrote the poem “Strazdas” (1967); later composer Bronius Kutavičius created an unusual oratorio, calling it a “drama of sounds,” which he later renamed the opera-poem “Strazdas—The Green Bird” (1980), and Jonas Vaitkus, drawing on these works, created an unforgettable ritualistic, sacred spectacle on the stage of the Kaunas Drama Theater in 1984. A cinematic version of the production was created in the 1990s. In those years, “Strazdas” seemed to invite the audience to step away from “politics” into the realm of pure art and immerse themselves in a stream of images of refined beauty that blended the aesthetic principles of Lithuanian folk art with those of traditional Eastern theater.
The image of the peasant bard Strazdelis (Antanas Strazdas-Drazdauskas), born of the metaphor of wings, the poet’s bird-like surname, and his distinctive personality—is transformed by director Jonas Vaitkus into the character of the Bird-Man. Incidentally, Strazdas’s unique personality and works have inspired many Lithuanian artists to create masterpieces. Music lovers are also well acquainted with Vytautas Kernagis’s composition based on Geda’s poem “Strazdas.”
Bronius Kutavičius’s work encompasses a broad cultural context, uncovering the depths of national history and prehistory buried in the mists of time, and giving tangible form to the pure archetypes of mythical and religious consciousness. His harmonious, sometimes even intricately constructed sound systems are always brimming with life and the power of emotion. Kutavičius’s work has overcome the barrier of mistrust and the public’s indifference toward contemporary music. The composer freely employed a wide variety of contemporary compositional techniques, but the most significant the polyphonic technique of repeating vocal lines found in the unique sutartinės of northeastern Lithuania had the greatest influence on his style. This was a conscious “turn” toward paganism—a spiritual path, incidentally, that was also close to Geda’s work.
Geda modernized Lithuanian poetry, while Kutavičius became a symbol of musical renewal. Their joint works are canonical landmarks of modern Lithuanian art, having given rise to a new phenomenon—pagan avant-gardism.
The project is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
