This year, the Midsummer Vilnius Festival returns with its cherished and much-appreciated format—Opera Under the Stars. 

On the evening of 25 July, the unfading love story of centuries, Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” will be performed by one of Lithuania’s most talented opera soloists, Edgaras Montvidas, together with the evening’s guests and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Modestas Pitrėnas. 

Opera Under the Stars is an extraordinary spectacle worth experiencing at least once in a lifetime. Passionate opera lovers travel hundreds of kilometres every year to listen to unique productions in spectacular spaces. That’s precisely what the Midsummer Vilnius Festival offers under the romantic midsummer sky in the heart of Vilnius.

One of the world’s most popular operas, “Carmen”, depicts a woman who longs for love. Still, her heart is consumed by obsession and jealousy. Bizet’s score, inspired by Spanish motifs, bubbles with passionately seductive melodies, the most famous of which are heard in the arias of Habanera and Toreador.

About Edgaras Montvidas.

One of the most famous Lithuanian opera tenors studied at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in the class of Prof. Virgilijus Noreika. His international career took off with performances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden from 2001 to 2003, where he performed Alfredo in Verdi’s “La Traviata”, Arminio in “Les Misérables”, Marcellus and Laertes in Thomas’s opera “Hamlet”, and Fenton in Verdi’s “Falstaff”. From 2003 to 2006, Edgaras Montvidas performed at the Frankfurt Opera.

He has created more than 40 roles at the English National Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Cincinnati Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Dutch National Opera, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra Comique of Paris, the Royal Theatre of La Monnaie in Brussels, and the theatres of Geneva, Frankfurt, Lyon, Strasbourg, and others.

Edgaras Montvidas is not a rare guest in his native Lithuania, where he regularly collaborates with the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre (LNOBT), Vilnius City Opera (VCO), performs with the country’s prominent orchestras and sings at the country’s leading festivals.

For his merits to Lithuania he has been awarded the Medal of the Order for Merits to Lithuania, the Honorary Badge of the Ministry of Culture “Carry Your Light and Believe”, the Kaunas City Municipality Award “Medal of Kaunas City Burgomaster Jonas Vileišis”, and the Golden Stage Cross awards for the roles of Werther in the opera “Werther” at the VCO in 2009 and Alfredo in the opera “La Traviata” at the LNOBT in 2020. In 2023, the performer was also awarded the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize.