Nida School Chronicle

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Walking piece details

The plot of this soundwalk opera is based on real text written in Nida (Lithuania) by german speaking school teachers between 1922 an 1945. It reflects on the real historical events that were happening around the small town of Nida situated in the Curonian Spit. The location – is a small piece of land surrounded by clear and salted waters, consisting of sand and pine trees, both constantly stormed by insistent Baltic Sea winds. During the opera you notice how the text transforms from dry historical and chronological facts to deeply personal experiences. The story is told by two imaginary characters (female and male) that consist solely on the entries written into the chronicle. Eventually the listener realises that this is a quasi-epistolary novel, a quasi-love story. The key sentence of the piece is a quote from the separate letter that was found in among the pages of the chronicle book –  “We haven’t each other for a long time”. This sparked an idea for the opera’s playwright Kristė Savickienė to edit the original texts of the chronicle to the correspondence of two imaginary characters. As opera’s composer and Idea author Jonas Jurkūnas states, the audio material resembles various pieces of time metaphors, structurally morphing from traditional acoustic sound towards abstract electronic experience and backwards.

The opera may be experienced in Nida via Echoes, and is also available via SoundCloud.

In 2021 autumn opera was shown in a theatrical version/acousmatic experience in Klaipėda drama theatre.

Credits

Hosted by: Nida Culture and Tourism Information Center Agila