The project "Boys' and Young People's Choirs Singing with Opera Soloists" will also come to Klaipėda: Gintarėlis, Agnė Stančikaitė and Rafailas Karpis
Klaipeda Boys' and Young People's Choirs "Gintarėlis" (artistic director Tomas Ambrozaitis), which has distinguished itself in Lithuanian song festivals, various art projects, and concerts in international halls, is taking part in a concert with opera soloists Agnė Stančikaitė and Rafailas Karpis. The choir and the duo will perform excerpts from operas by Verdi and Lehar, the song "White Bird" by V. Kernagis and other works. The concert programme includes arias and duets, both serious and comic. Both opera singers like to perform comic characters alongside serious dramatic ones. Rafail Karpis, for example, is an excellent actor in the funny genre, and although he is not the main character of the drama, he captures the attention of the audience and is memorable because he makes them laugh or, as it were, stops the action and draws their attention. In 2023, Raphael became the winner of the TV music project "I am music". He was voted by the public and performed 7 different genres in the project.
A wonderful discovery is the soloist Agnė Stančikaitė, already noticed by the main directors of our opera and theatre, such as A. Cholina, Agnė masterfully performed the role of Violetta in her production of Verdi's La Traviata at Kaunas Musical Theatre.
About Gintarėlis
In June 2023, the Gintarėlis Choir celebrated its 60th birthday. On this occasion Algirdas Šumskis wrote a detailed and very valuable article about this choir in the culture and art magazine "Durys". He mentions that boys' and young people's choirs have existed for a very long time, and that the singing traditions in Lithuania were not different from those of European choral culture. One of the first boys' choirs was founded in Vilnius as early as 1513. "More information about boys' choirs in Lithuania can be found as early as the end of the 19th century. Here I would single out Juozas Naujalis, who, as early as 1892 in Kaunas, gathered a choir of 25 musically gifted boys, and also taught them church Gregorian chant, music writing, solfeggio, piano and organ. Julius Štarka, Aleksandras Kačanauskas, Stasys Šimkus, Nikodemas Martinonis and others sang in the J. Naujalis Choir.
It is also known that already at the beginning of the twentieth century, boys' choirs were actively gathering in other towns - Šiauliai, Klaipėda, Marijampolė, Varniai, etc. Historical publications mention that in Šiauliai there was an active choir of the Boys' Gymnasium and the Saint Ignatius Church. Professor Regimantas Gudelis has noted in his books that in Lithuania, before the Second World War, boys' and young people's choirs were present in almost all gymnasiums and achieved quite high creative results, and were significant as nuclei of community consolidation. Boys' choirs were also active in churches and parishes. However, after the occupation, during the Soviet era, the situation of boys' choirs in Lithuania changed radically. They were deprived of the important functions of socialising children and aesthetic education of the community. However, the tradition of boys' choirs in Lithuania did not cease even during the Soviet era, and it continues to this day."
The author mentions that the tradition of boys' and young men's choirs has survived and has been a very important part of the education of Lithuanian manhood, masculinity and spiritual values.
"Fate has arranged it in such a way that I have to work in the collective in which I grew up myself. Every rehearsal was spectacular and every concert was special. It was a school of life, of tolerance, of respect for each other. Music with a capital letter. I think these are the basic things for a growing person, the best lessons," said Tomas Ambrozaitis, the current artistic director of the choir "Gintarėlis".
