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Lietuvos mokslų akademija — 2025-12-10

About Halina

Darius Kučinskas — 2025-12-10

The article is dedicated to Halina Wolman, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s piano student. She was one of Čiurlionis’s distinguished students and had a certain influence on the composer and his work: it was to her that Čiurlionis dedicated several piano pieces, the symphonic poem Creation of the World, and the cycle of poetic texts ‘Letters to Devdorakėlis’. However, very little was known about her life until now. Newly discovered archival documents and the account of Halina’s husband, Stefen Stokes, describing their escape from Warsaw at the start of the Second World War made it possible to reconstruct her life story up until her death. At the same time, this research provides answers regarding her archive, which undoubtedly contained musical manuscripts, letters, photographs, and drawings by the gifted Čiurlionis. This archive was scattered piecemeal and abandoned in parts at the locations on the route of Halina’s escape from the war: a house in the suburbs of Warsaw, Plyanta (near Kobryn) and Lyusina (Brest region; both in Belarus), and Vilnius.

The Ambivalence of Lithuanian Themes in Vytautas Bacevičius’s (1905–1970) Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 12 (1929)

Yusuke Ishii — 2025-12-10

This article analyses Vytautas Bacevičius’s (1905–1970) Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 12 (1929), composed in Paris during the second stage of his creative career, the so-called ‘period of individual style crystallization’. The study seeks to reveal the impact of the École de Paris environment, as well as the composer’s own experience as a pianist, on his creative work. Although the concerto incorporates three Lithuanian folk songs, their treatment is inconsistent: the melodies appear as stylised quotations in the spirit of ‘anti-sentimentalism’, which makes it difficult to regard them as an attempt to create national music. The analysis shows that here the use of folklore functions rather as a means of stylisation within the discourse of early twentieth-century European modernism. Furthermore, the architectural structure of the work reveals connections with Franz Liszt’s (1811–1886) Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major (1830–1853), reflecting Bacevičius’s pianistic background.

Comparing Lithuanian Folk Scales with Historical Temperament Systems in Lithuania and the USA

Vytautas Germanavičius — 2025-12-10

The novelty and relevance of the idea of this artistic research lies in the comparison of the intervals of the traditional Lithuanian unequal tunings and the European and Middle Eastern unequal temperament systems in order to identify the degree of similarities and differences of interval distances. The novelty also lies in the extent of the research object, which included Lithuanian folk music recordings from the first half of the twentieth century preserved in Lithuania and the USA. It could be argued that the twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET) has influenced Lithuanian traditional tunings, but several studies carried out on traditional Lithuanian vocal and instrumental music show that the 12-TET is not widespread. However, the micro-intervals in Lithuanian music have retained their uniqueness and distinctiveness compared with neighbouring countries (Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Finland), where no natural intervals and tuning of traditional scales has been detected. The project objective is the comparison of unequal tuning systems with Lithuanian folk music scales using computer technologies. The research methods used during the project were: (a) comparative method, a study of European and Asian unequal systems based on the temperaments of natural harmonic series and the traditional Lithuanian music scales; (b) the software R statistical analysis method, using a file system to process text information. It can be concluded that there are many cases of natural intervals found in Lithuanian folk songs, considering that the temperaments of previous centuries had some naturally tuned intervals.

Reception of Documentary Theatre in Lithuania and the Societal Change

Vaidas Jauniškis — 2025-12-10

The article analyses three performances staged by the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in 2017–2018: Žalia pievelė (Green Meadow) was based on real life stories of the workers of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, Dreamland showed real-life stories of refugees, and Nežinoma žemė. Šalčia (Unknown Land. Šalčia) was documentary research in the town of Šalčininkai. This informal trilogy is one of the first examples of postdramatic documentary theatre in Lithuania. When Rimini Protokoll brought their project Sabenation. Go home & follow the news to Sirenos ‘05 Vilnius international theatre festival, critics were sceptical about the ‘exploitation’ of real people on stage. Twelve years later, reception of new performances shows how much documentary theatre has become acceptable and even insufficiently documentary. What has changed in those twelve years?
According to Pierre Bourdieu, ‘the readability of a work of art for a particular individual varies according to the divergence between the more or less complex and subtle code required by the work, and the competence of the individual, as defined by the degree to which the social code, itself more or less complex and subtle, is mastered’. Reception of the trilogy reflects the transformations both in theatre and in Lithuania’s sociocultural space. Postdramatic theatre (which is precisely what the documentary genre is) has become commonplace in Lithuania, and the new young generation is enthusiastically creating it. Although political theatre is not common in Lithuania, it is a legacy of the older theatre generation, which avoided talking about forbidden topics. The denial of the actor’s body and physicality through acting and character creation was (and remains) an important part of the theatrical tradition, while real people on stage destroy the illusory nature of theatre. Performativity affirms reality, the participation of authentic people and real transformations on stage. Artists are beginning to look for other, non-theatrical spaces – authentic apartments, abandoned factories, real environments – and exploit their unique aspects.
One of the significant changes is related to new trends in various fields of art and media that present real people. In the last decades of the twentieth century, biographical literature and books of conversations with real people became popular around the world. The genres of reporting from hot spots complements the fields of literature and cinema, with film directors creating not only biopics but also films about ‘common people’, analysing real situations with heroes of the everyday. At the turn of the century, reality shows and their ‘heroes from the street’ began to dominate global television ratings. On social media, it is no longer experts in a particular field but influencers and streamers who are important.
It is important to mention that the plays discussed were created by a young generation of artists who grew up in independent Lithuania. This provides evidence of changing values and the gradual acceptance of new rules of functioning in the field of art.

Adaptation as Directorial Practice: The Repertoire Dynamics of Staging Prose in Twenty-First-Century Theatre

Ramunė Marcinkevičiūtė — 2025-12-10

The article examines the dynamics of prose adaptations in twenty-first-century Lithuanian theatre. Adaptations of prose works have become a notable phenomenon in contemporary Lithuanian theatre. While in the first decade of the century the staging of non-dramatic literature could still be regarded as a distinctive feature of director Eimuntas Nekrošius’s theatre, prose adaptations increasingly emerge as a frequent choice among younger theatre makers in the 2010s and 2020s. Prose adaptations are analysed as a relevant phenomenon of contemporary theatre, focusing on the creative practices of directors from different generations and countries as well as on landmark productions. The article highlights theatre’s capacity to engage with literature as a living process and to reflect prose works through the means of the performing arts.

From Documentation to Generation: Digital Archives and a Shift in Theatre Memory

Asta Petrikienė — 2025-12-10

The article examines the digital-technology-driven transformation of the archive and the process of reshaping theatre historiography and the cultural memory of this art form. Drawing on the insights of Wolfgang Ernst, Gabriella Giannachi, and Sarah Bay-Cheng and through the analysis of scholarly literature, the article discusses the operational, experiential, and interactive functions of digital archives. It argues that the paradigm of archiving is shifting from documentation to generation: in the digital environment, an archive is no longer a passive repository of documents but an active, performative system that not only preserves but also produces theatrical memory. The research methodology integrates approaches from theatre studies, archival science, and cultural theory, while the article presents a case study analysing the creation of the ‘imagined’ opera Jūratė (2025) by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. This study illustrates how the archive, artists, and artificial intelligence tools generate new forms of theatrical memory and historiographical production. The findings reveal that by combining machine-based data processing with user participation, digital archives transcend the boundaries of traditional documentation by reactivating the ephemeral traces of theatre in the present and enabling new forms of memory, historiography, and participation.