9^th Contemporary Opera Festival NOA

22/10/2025, Wednesday, 18.00

23/10/2025, Thursday, 19.00

Small Hall of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre (Gediminas Ave. 4, Vilnius)

LLLLOVE

An Alphabetised Love Story

Premiere

The opera LLLLOVE was born out of a creative experiment inspired by Karen Reimer's (publishing under the name Eve Rhymer) novel Legendary Lexical Loquacious Love. In this book, the text of a romance novel is deconstructed and rearranged in strict alphabetical order. Following this conceptual trajectory, the creators of the opera pose a provocative question: does love remain meaningful when its narrative and emotional tempo are removed and its semantic field is formed solely on the basis of the structural logic of language?

The work abandons the classical plot and, instead of a linear narrative, offers the viewer an experience based on the live interaction of language, sound, and movement. Here, letters become the driving force of the composition: as action develops from A to Z, gestures, sounds, bodies, and silence take on a direction, as if obeying the alphabetical order, but at the same time creating new trajectories of meaning.

The opera’s dramaturgy is developed through clear oppositions: live performance vs. electronic recording, moving vs. static image, voice vs. instrument, language vs. melody, harmony vs. noise. These oppositions help the viewer to rethink what “expression of love” means: not as a story with a beginning and an end, but as a constantly evolving structure, an action in which different meanings unfold.

LLLLOVE is a stage ritual that reflects a contemporary, intellectually intense relationship with emotions: fragmented, reflected, yet still clinging to the human desire to understand and connect. It is not a conveyance of a romantic story, but a sensitive, multifaceted look at how love can exist – without a narrative, but with all its contradictions, doubts and new codes.

The alphabetised love story LLLLOVE invites the viewer to raise the question: is there still room for love when the familiar disappears? When established orders collapse and are replaced by unpredictable, yet undefined structures?

Based on the novel Legendary Lexical Loquacious Love by Eve Rhymer (Karen Reimer)

Composer: Jonas Jurkūnas

Movement director: Erika Vizbaraitė

Set designer: Ona Juciūtė

Costume designer: Liucija Kvašytė

Sculptor: Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis

Lighting designer: Dainius Urbonis

VJ: Ervinas Gresevičius

Sound engineer: Roberto Becerra

Producer: Operomanija

Cast: Sigita Juraškaitė (dancer), Nikita Berezko (dancer), Gunta Gelgotė (soprano), Nora Petročenko (mezzo-soprano), Paulius Klangauskas (tenor), Nerijus Masevičius (bass-baritone), Salomėja Kalvelytė (flute), Paula Bagotyriūtė (piano), Filippos Raskovic (keyboards), Dominykas Snarskis (percussion)

Composer Jonas Jurkūnas:

We continue the trajectory outlined in this book by exploring the durability and resilience of meaning in the face of various types of restricting operations. Karen Reimer has convincingly demonstrated that the alphabetisation of the text of a romance novel does not negate the possibility of the novel’s meanings continuing to live on at all levels. Moreover, we are certain that in certain cases, framing structures do not imprison or restrict, but rather liberate the meanings contained in the text and enable them to connect in ever-new constellations. In music, I sought ways to discover a liberating relationship through sound that echoes the spirit of Reimer’s book. In this novel, alphabetisation is contrasted with structures of meaning. This raises the question: what remains after such a structuring procedure? In the opera, we followed the same question, looking for formal oppositions that would also allow the universe of meanings in the book to function freely.

It was intriguing to explore how the formative and framing principles of composition could help the meanings in the book to exist in absolute freedom. This freedom might be affirming a kind of non-duality, where the human desire to make sense of the surrounding world, to recognise and name meanings, and the vibrant, continuous irrationality of the Universe coincide and become a question lasting for one hour. So what remains? Love remains.

Movement director Erika Vizbaraitė:

The choreography of the piece is based on natural, primitive, primordial movement, exploring the spiral of human evolution: from primitive hominids through the archetypes of apes and anthropoids to modern humans, still carrying the memory of instincts in their bodies. Here, the theme of love is developed not through the plot or psychological roles, but through the body—as a changing, contradictory, living state that encompasses desire, curiosity, conflict, forgiveness, and dissolution.

The language of movement is based on contemporary dance techniques: floorwork, contact improvisation, release technique, and sensory exploration of how the body feels and how it unfolds. In partnership, bodies act as axes of force and space, constantly recreating balance, while abstract, illogical combinations break the usual gravity and lines, creating constantly changing architectural relationships in space.

The principle of the work is based on the structure of the alphabet, which permeates the choreography as well: the movements follow the order of the letters from A to Z, with each letter becoming a sign, direction, or impulse of movement. Bodies become living letters, words, phrases: they do not tell a story, but create a field of meaning based on the structure of Karen Reimer’s book Legendary Lexical Loquacious Love. Musicians and singers are not isolated, they are involved in the overall action: they move in space, leaving their “musical spots”, joining the dancers’ trajectories, and becoming both auditory and physical participants. Movement, action, and choreography create an image of love that does not exist as a clear story, but unfolds as a constantly vibrating, live alphabet written through bodies, sounds, space, and time—an alphabet of love where each letter is not only a word, but also a body, sound, scent, and touch.

Set designer Ona Juciūtė:

I find it very intriguing to think of a book – a collection of white pages with black letters – as a space. Without its cover, a novel seems indifferent to its appearance, it is a code that gives stories their character. What happens to that character when the code is broken and all the words are arranged in order? What space are we in? What does a book look like when the colours of the narrative are removed from it? What texture and forms does it bear? This work also reminds me of memory loss, when the logical connections that existed before are broken and the alphabetical structure that holds the words together seems absurd. Perhaps love works in a similar way—it blows up the order that existed before, lifts us off the ground, and inspires us to start over.

Sculptor Donatas Jankauskas-Duonis:

This work is about a person who, as homo sapiens, is only two weeks old in his 300,000-year evolutionary history. The foundation seems to be laid out in order, as if by agreement, so that the intuition does not disappear, and all the songs are about love. Everything must be seen with love. A lot of I {I} – it’s a keyboard key stuck on I, maybe there even wasn’t any book about love. Do we love seeing or not knowing what we see? With other mental loves, such as hearing, moving, smelling... the same question. Why are we hairy after all? At the Berlin Zoo, I watch two young gorillas sitting in a cage behind thick glass, leaning their backs against it, their heads turned toward each other, staring into each other’s eyes without blinking. This is happening in front of about twenty homo sapiens, who are reacting to this mise-en-scène in various ways. The little Japanese children are tapping their paws on the glass, while the adult ones are calmly discussing what they see. Nothing else is happening – only the eyes of one gorilla slowly begin to rise toward the audience on this side of the window, and its gaze stops directly on mine. One, two, three, four, five. Wide open eyes or an amazement of a tarsier.

I felt ashamed, embarrassed, several people turned to see who was the victim of the gaze. I couldn’t believe what was happening. She read me. I’m in a cage. Shall I smile or show my teeth?

The gorilla lowered her gaze back and returned to where everything was clear and pure. Won’t tell, won’t sing. Face or snout.

The next act is a chimpanzee watching the screen, touching it, getting food from the vending machine. Eat or devour.

LLLLOVE

a person with a sock over their face and an object resembling a gun

[Language unedited]

Duration: 60 minutes

In Lithuanian and English

The event will be filmed and photographed. The material will be distributed publicly.