A beach in La Boca? How is the Lithuanian opera-performance about climate collapse

Just when the heat begins its retreat over the Río de la Plata estuary after three hellish weeks, the wake of

golden sand in a dream postcard, which until Sunday invites guests at the Colón Fábrica .

The apocalypse can be beautiful, summery and sweet, and it is the disturbing power of this contradiction that is explored by

It will be necessary to go up the catwalks and walk to be able to attend because

For the occasion, the immense 7,500-square-meter shed that the Teatro Colón has in the La Boca neighborhood

The huge 7,500-square-meter shed that the Teatro Colón has in the La Boca neighborhood mutated into a generous spa.

Photos Colón Theater Press / Máximo Parpagnoli

Lying on the sand, wearing bathing suits and towels always in pastel tones, and while they eat cookies, complete crossword puzzles or play paddle games, they are

that, although it partially worries them, does not prevent them from sustaining general indifference.

This work created by

, director of the production;

composer;

and the playwright and writer

, was first applauded at the Vilnius International Theater Festival, when the script was still played in Lithuanian.

From there, and already translated and adapted into English, it reached the periphery of Venice, in a shed far from the center where the best of the Biennale vibrates.

From that periphery, the word of mouth sounded that was weaving queues of two hours of waiting in the rain.

Everyone wanted to see that beautiful and haunting beach.

Already with the Golden Lion in hand,

began to travel the world:

first it was Norway in March 2020 and before arriving in Buenos Aires it passed through Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Greece, the United States, Sweden, Russia , Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Finland, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Australia and Chile.

Bathers attend the climate collapse without much concern.

Photos Colón Theater Press / Máximo Parpagnoli

When the sun heats

Sun & Sea

was born with an image: bathers singing, who were observed from above.

The three Lithuanian creators had already worked on an opera before.

Friends since they were teenagers in Kaunas, the second most populous city in Lithuania after Vilnius (with more than 328,000 inhabitants), and the cultural epicenter of the country, they had composed

, a piece starring a group of supermarket cashiers.

That first collaboration developed a critique of consumerism that puts on weight while the job stability and quality of life of the population lose weight.

“It took us between four and five years to reflect on the central message of this new work, that is, what these people could be singing about and what sense it makes,” recalls screenwriter and writer Vaiva Grainytė by email to Clarín Cultura, days

. from the premiere this Thursday.

Sun & Sea was born with an image: bathers singing, who were observed from above.

Photos Colón Theater Press / Máximo Parpagnoli

But then, ecology began to open up space.

“I was reading literature related to the climate crisis, catastrophes, nature, extinction, food mileage, and trying to translate that knowledge into mundane ideas.

I also incorporated some personal stories, such as the character of the workaholic, a long-distance love relationship or the discovery of some chanterelles (edible mushrooms) in December (a subtle way of talking about climatic deviation)”, he completes.

The three of them say that the figure that best defines them is not so much that of a trio as that of a three-headed dragon.

“We were clear that we wanted to work in a very horizontal way, we hated traditional theater and its hierarchy.

For us, creation arises from a space of listening and respect for the other.

This makes the processes longer, more tiring, agreements and conclusions are difficult, but we start from an idea, from an intuition, and from there we walk together”, Rugilé explained years ago.

Seeing from above has a purpose.

"The idea is to focus on the human being from an anthropological point of view," they explained. Photos Teatro Colón Press/ Máximo Parpagnoli

haunting visual poetry

If

leaves a trace of concern that happens in the end.

When the platforms were left behind, when the music fades away, when we come back, when it's all over.

There they conjugate two registers.

First, that a populated summer landscape in which families, some twins, an elderly couple and another male, who spend the afternoon cradled by the drowsiness of the heat of the beach.

But it also operates, the seed of grief.

It is easy to remember the woman who boasts of the hollow tourism she practices: “My son is eight and a half years old / And he has already swum in the / Black, / Yellow, / White, / Red, / Mediterranean, / Aegean Seas... /You have already visited two great oceans of the world, /and we will visit the rest this year!”.

Or to the workaholic: "I really don't feel like he can afford to / relax me, / because my coworkers / will look down on me."

Or the “Song of admiration” that stops at “the jellyfish dance in pairs /with emerald-coloured bags, /red-coloured bottles and caps”.

Sun & Sea toured the most diverse locations in the world, from Venice to Buenos Aires.

Photos Colón Theater Press / Máximo Parpagnoli

Seeing from above has a purpose.

"The idea is to focus on the human being from an anthropological point of view or from an anthropological curiosity and observing them from above, with a certain alienation, allows us to detect those patterns of social behavior that are continually repeated," director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė points out to Clarín

Cultura

.

And the composer Lina Lapelytė shares a difficult aspect: “This point of view is not only challenging for the public but also for the performers who have to sing lying down, in a bathing suit or even wet.

It is easy to find good professionals, but it is less easy to find good artists who are willing to take risks”.

Sun & Sea

toured the world's most diverse venues: the Marina Militare in Venice.

An empty Bauhaus pool in Berlin.

Sheds in Greece.

A Roman theater from 1732. And an underground cultural center in Chile.

However, the rot of the Riachuelo triggers an unusually powerful dialogue of ideas.

"It took us between four and five years to reflect on the central message of this new work, that is, on what these people could be singing and what sense it makes," explained the screenwriter.

Photos Colón Theater Press / Máximo Parpagnoli

File

Sun & Sea

 Colón Fábrica, Av. Don Pedro de Mendoza 2163.

: from March 16 to 19, from 5 to 9 pm.

from $3,500.

DC/PC

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