The opera Confessions was inspired by the artists' interest in spatial electronics, and in particular spatial acoustic sound and its impact on the human imagination. The authors then decided to create a spatial opera in the dark, focusing on the possibilities offered by the acoustic environment. The Christian idea of the seven deadly sins became the basis for the opera's libretto.
The seven parts of Confessions deal with the seven deadly sins of greed, pride, gluttony, envy, revenge, lust, and sloth. "Confessions brings together the authors' long-standing ideas for creative experimentation: performing music in the dark, involving the other senses (smell, touch) and seemingly eliminating the visual aspect entirely. However, in the work, the latter is in fact the most stimulating factor in the listener's imagination, through abstract soundscapes and concrete pre-recorded sounds that evoke strong images related to feelings, sensations or objects.
In 2016, the opera was awarded the Golden Stage Cross for Best Music. It was also awarded the "Vignette of the Year" prize in the "Audience's Sympathy" nomination by the Lithuanian Composers' Union. The opera has been presented in various concert halls, theatres and festivals in Lithuania, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia and Great Britain.
Instructions for the audience: The audience will be seated in the dark, wearing blindfolds-masks, which will be distributed before the performance. There is one exclusive seat in the space - the "pink chair". It is the only one and it is free of charge, obtained by a competition. The listener of the "pink chair" experiences an extreme complex of acoustic surroundings, smells, tastes and touches. To be eligible for this seat, you must make a sincere confession of one sin to
[email protected] before 10 April 2024. The selected participant will be contacted and required to sign a contract.
Warnings: There are no age restrictions, but parents bringing younger children should be sure that the children will be able to spend the hour blindfolded, without disturbing the children or losing contact with the parents.
Critical Reviews
Confessions becomes more than an hour-long test of the place-time-sound-feeling experience and boundaries, ie. The theatre of the senses and the imagination, in which the relationship between observer-viewer and observed-observer becomes "inverted": the mask covering the face belongs here to the spectator, who has voluntarily renounced sight.
Rima Jūraitė, Teatro žurnas
The spectator balances between heightened alertness due to bodily experiences and dreaminess due to the imagination's frenzy.
Gražina Montvidaitė, 7 art days
At times, despite the "off" sense of vision, the performance can cause sensory overload. In everyday life, people rely so heavily on their eyesight that the loss of it automatically leads to a sense of insecurity, as alertness and vulnerability are heightened.
Julia Weber, musikultur.com
With its uninterrupted sound and action, Confessions maintains a chameleonic approach to the genre, fusing fragments of music seemingly straight out of a 19th-century grand opéra with thoroughly contemporary noise music.
Neil Luck, The Drama Review
The hard-to-describe sounds, noises and musical passages caress and attack, seduce and surprise the ear, encouraging the imagination to create a variety of different, and not always the most pleasing or pleasant (sins are, after all, still), images.
Goda Dapsytė, 370
