The concert will be a musical cocktail of the most alluring arias and operettas by Western European composers. We will hear operaic masterpieces by Giacomo Puccini, Charles Gounod, Georges Bizet, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi, Gioachino Rossini, Franz Lehár, Leonard Bernstein, and other composers. The program will also feature the work of Liepāja-born Lithuanian composer Balys Dvarionas, rarely performed in Latvia.

The stage in Liepāja will be graced by the presence of the radiant soprano Viktorija Miškūnaitė, whose outstanding talent of truly embodying a character has been known since 2006 to audiences not only in Lithuania, but also on the largest stages of Europe. Miškūnaitė’s repertoire includes such extraordinary roles as Micaëla (in Carmen), Musetta (in La bohème), and Turandot (in Turandot). For her role as Manon (in Manon), the singer has received the Opera Soloist of the Year award and the most prestigious Lithuanian award, the Golden Cross of the Stage, in 2016.

The program will also invite one of the most famous Lithuanian tenors, Merūnas Vitulskis, who is a regular at various opera music festivals and on the stages of several distinguished European opera houses – the Vienna State Opera, the Graz Opera, the Bilbao Opera, and others. His repertoire includes some of the most beautiful tenor roles, including Rodolfo (in La bohème), Pinkerton (in Madama Butterfly), Alfredo (in La traviata), and others.

Both soloists will be joined by the highly praised baritone Steponas Zonys, who has performed such roles as Belcore (in L'elisir d'amore), Moralès (in Carmen), Schaunard (in La bohème). Zonys has had great success at international competitions, as well as received Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė’s Order for Merits to Lithuania He received the LNOBT Opera Hope award in 2019 and the Opera Soloist of the Year award in 2023.

Ričardas Šumila, once trained with Gintaras Rinkevičius, will take the conductor’s podium of the Lithuanian national Opera and Ballet Theatre Orchestra. In 2014, he was awarded with the Golden Cross of the Stage in the Young Artist category for staging Hansel and Gretel at the Vilnius Opera. In recent years, Šumila has been creating programs for young orchestra musicians and has been the chief conductor of the LNOBT since 2019.

Participants:

Ričardas Šumila, chief conductor

The Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre orchestra

Soloists:

Viktorija Miškūnaitė, soprano

Merūnas Vitulskis, tenor

Steponas Zonys, baritone