A work for two opera houses Absorptio: a work for two opera houses is a contemporary opera and a commentary on opera culture. The audience becomes part of the work and experiences social situations that are recognisable yet alien. Participants are invited to rethink what it means to "go to the opera" or to listen to the opera, and a guide helps them not to get lost in the work by guiding small groups of audience members through the proceedings. "Absorptio is a non-existent word that describes the creative context and its multiple meanings. Being interactive, the work incorporates the social environment and other contiguous, related elements, connecting the fields of contemporary music, opera and contemporary art. The aspect of the two opera houses is revealed through the event space, which is a kind of antipode of "high culture". "The Opera Social House is a building next to the theatre and indirectly linked to the opera; it once belonged to the theatre, but nowadays it is a contemporary bar intervention. The two buildings of the opera house are brought into play in the work, commenting on each other and thus also on the city. The work is like a dialogue between the two opera houses, its dramaturgy echoing the logic of ambition, of success and the pursuit of heights, of the creation and consumption of art. The audience is interactively involved in the action in different spaces. Its sound material is a soundtrack in headphones. The finale of the work is performed live. "Absorptio was born out of an impulse to comment on the situation of opera and to consider the role of (contemporary) opera in today's culture and cultural industry, while incorporating narratives related to the circulation of art.
Video operators: Žilvinas Andriušis, Arūnas Bronušas, Aliona Malikėnienė, Laurynas Aksamitas, Kristina Morta Paškevičiūtė, Rytis Zemkauskas, LNOBT Symphony Orchestra
