A piece for voice and piano in a favorable light
TULA AND OTHERS
(based on J. Kunčinas novel "Tula" and short stories)
-What is written about all the time? - I asked.
- About love, death and wine - replied the old man with dignity.
(Jurgis Kunčinas)
Piece for voice and piano. Based on Jurgis Kunčín's novel "Tula" and short stories. It's just a love story. Love to Vilnius and the woman. About love, which, like a lifeline, helps a hero who has reached the bottom of his life to at least temporarily rise to the surface and breathe fresh air. Here, love is vagabond and divine, dirty and pure, drunk and conscious, cut off and screaming, but this is the only chance to find a "corner of the sky where you don't have to do feats".
During his endless wanderings through the dilapidated streets of the old town of Vilnius, the bushes of Kalnai Park, the abandoned house of Užupis, the hero, whose name we don't even know, meets a girl named Tūla. Their short and tragic relationship lasts only a week, but the surviving memories help the hero to feel alive even when the life that passed too quickly stares mercilessly into his eyes, letting him understand that the coming day will not bring anything new. He escapes from insane wards and prison cells at night, transformed into a bat, he keeps coming back to the abandoned Tula house - the only place where he felt happy.
This story of impossible love is told by the Writer during the evening of his creation. The story wanders uncontrollably between eras, places and seasons, involving more and more residents of the motley "cauldron of nations" - Vilnius and its surroundings, intertwined with his own interpretation of the tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, which, according to the writer, are just children's play. , compared to the fantastic love between a man - a bat and Tula. The only similarity is that they are all tragic.
"Love only reaches its goal when it ends in death," said the executioner, and cut off their heads.
We do not live in romantic times. But it is said that there is a bit of hopeless romantic in each of us. "Tula and others" - an opportunity to find out if it is true?
