Sound

In brief: Giedrius Kuprevičius, who celebrated his birthday jubilee last year, crowns the date with festival of musicals - "Singing Theatre" that will take place on the 24th to 26th of March. I talked to G. Kuprevičius about his moods before the festival, why some of the performances are brought to Kaunas only now and what place does the musical occupy in the composers creative life.

I asked the composer how he got the idea to organize this event. G. Kuprevičius answered that it is already a second one "Exactly ten years ago, I had showed four of my stage performances day after day, at the Kaunas Musical Theatre. Thus, head of the theatre, Benjaminas Želvys took my proposal willingly and tried, as much as he could, under a modest budget to organize a real festival of musicals. And where else would we do it if not in Kaunas, which is now being reigned by this genre."

Composer says that "In the book "Concert" I noted that I "entered" opera by myself and musical "entered" me. It is one of the trickiest musical genres. People who think that it is enough to put a word "musical" on the poster are wrong. This genre has very strict requirements and traditions and if you disregard them it all ends in failure. Unfortunately, many composers ignore these things. That’s how the best ideas turn into a one-day event, which people speak more of before than after.

During the festival, before each performance composer will meet the audience. I asked him how important the viewer is to him. According to G. Kuprevičius, this idea that his colleague Lina Stankevičiūtė came up with is really western "In many European cities short meetings are held before musical events. People are familiarized with pieces featured in the program, there are talks about style, epochs and genres. So I look forward to these meetings and I hope for a mutual joy."

Festival will offer three musicals that have not been shown in Kaunas before and I wondered why they are coming to Kaunas only now when, say, premiere of a musical "Veronika" was held in Klaipėda in 2009. Composer says that everything depends on the funds "Musical theatre tour is a very difficult process, because you often have to bring a few hundred performers. Even the mono plays do not travel that often. It is a great luxury and risk - what if the audience will not show up? In fact, theatre would not survive anywhere in the world without the support of governments and private sponsors, because it is a luxurious pastime.