The Youth Theatre will open its 60th season with the premiere of Krystian Lupa's play based on Thomas Mann's novel "The Enchanted Mountain", which saw the light of day exactly 100 years ago.

This will be the first time that one of Thomas Mann's great works will be performed on the stage of Lithuanian theatre. It is a special treat that it is directed by Polish director Krystian Lupa, one of the last active European theatre moguls of the last generation. For this production, the director has assembled an international production team and a large ensemble of actors, most of whom are members of the Youth Theatre Company.

The Enchanted Mountain will have its premiere at the Salzburg International Festival on 20 August, with 5 performances at the historic Landestheater. One of the world's most authoritative forums for the performing arts is also the co-producer of the production of "Brokeback Mountain". The tour of the Lithuanian production at the Salzburg Festival, which presents only premieres by the world's most prominent opera and drama artists, is a unique event in the history of our theatre. Its uniqueness is underlined by the fact that the Lithuanian theatre will be presenting an interpretation of one of Thomas Mann's most important works to the German audience. "The Enchanted Mountain will close this year's festival's drama programme and is highly anticipated, with tickets for all premieres almost sold out. Lithuanian audiences will be able to see the premiere of "Brokeback Mountain" at the Youth Theatre on 20 September.

Having started writing "Brokeback Mountain" as a satirical short story for a magazine on the eve of World War I, Mann stopped working because of the war. He later admitted that the war enriched the content of the book immeasurably. After the war, the writing of "Brokeback Mountain" began in earnest and took on a completely different ambition. The novel did not appear until 12 years later, in 1924. Calling The Enchanted Mountain his life's work closest to his own personality, Mann said that the novel most closely embodies the leitmotif, the magic formula that links the past to the future, the future to the past. 

The journey is the key word in Krystian Lupa's creative approach. It is a journey into the unknown. It is based on exploration and collective work, penetrating the mysteries of the literary work and the human psyche. "In the case of The Enchanted Mountain, it is first and foremost a journey into Mann's own personality and his secret relationship with the main character of Hans Kastorp. For Lupa, it is important that Mann did not experience his hero's path, but wanted to experience it, and to do so he had to design it for himself, based on other people's experiences and written sources. This writing journey became more real for Mann than his real family life, which concealed his true passions.

It was important for Christian Lupa that the play should give a sense of what The Enchanted Mountain meant to Thomas Mann himself and to the world in which it was created. It should also reflect the circumstances of the creation itself. Lupa conceives of his play as a two-act play. In the first, we would see the world before the war, and in the second, we would see a world already affected by the experience of war. Through the dramaturgical contrast of the two acts, the director aims to show the evolution of the world from the manners of the 19th century and the optimistic faith in human reason and new technological discoveries of the early 20th century, to the collapse of all illusions and the deep anxiety about the future of a world close to today...

In his interpretation of Brokeback Mountain, Lupa draws on Mann's frequent use of the pronoun mes, which suggested the figure of the collective narrator. In the performance, he will be embodied by individual characters who become narrators at different points in the performance. Lupa uses the metaphor of painting to name the collective narrator. Each individual character is like a painting. On the stage, three brushes are painting and seventeen are waiting for their turn... Everyone has a hunger for life and experience. Similar to the one that Thomas Mann gave his hero. On the one hand, therefore, Hans Kastorp is a work of Mann's imagination and self-identification. On the other hand, it is the actor's own self-identification, as a way of being himself. It gives birth to a hunger to tell something personal... Out of this common hunger, the narrator of The Enchanted Mountain should be born, as a man of our time.

In The Enchanted Mountain, the main role of Hans Kastorp is played by the young actor Donatas Želvys. The other roles are played by actors Matas Dirginčius, Valentinas Masalskis, Viktorija Kuodytė, Aleksas Kazanavičius, Sergejus Ivanovas, Alvydė Pikturnaitė, Aušra Giedraitytė, Janina Matekonytė, Aušra Pukelytė, Ignas Ciplijauskas, Paulina Taujanskaitė, Matas Sigliukas, Neringa Bulotaitė, Gintautė Rusteikaitė, Rūta Jonikaitė, Aistė Rocevičiūtė.

The Enchanted Mountain is the third production by Krystian Lupa in Lithuanian theatre. Thanks to Lupa, Lithuanian theatre-goers are discovering a new world of theatre and the literary continents of the great 20th century writers Thomas Bernhard, W.G.Sebald and Thomas Mann. It is one big journey that encourages its participants to explore new ways of theatrical storytelling and to raise fundamental questions about the human being and the challenges of theatre in our times.  

The play is produced in collaboration with the Salzburg Festival.