A Night at the Opera

(Vilnius, Thursday, Friday) Another grey day in Vilnius. And another great day where the weather didn’t matter. We started the day by walking to the Lithuanian Parliament where our young guide, who spoke excellent English, was a friend of Dr. Morgan and a fellow Fulbright scholar. She showed us everywhere around the buildings including where the Soviet puppet legislature sat and the new chamber where the independent legislature sits. Most sobering is the still preserved piece of glass in the front of the building where a bullet hole marks the last Soviet attempt to keep Lithuania under Soviet control. We got to go on the floor of the windowless, old Parliament with students taking turns at the podium until Dr. Morgan took her rightful place in the leadership position with the rest of us dutifully looking toward her for guidance (see picture).

The halls of the Parliament are lined with pictures of famous visitors. Richard Nixon, then the former president, was the first US leader to visit free Lithuania. George W. Bush is the only sitting US President to visit here. They love him here because he promised that the US would never let Lithuania be taken over by another country. And we saw the first leader of the modern, free Lithuania. A man by the name of Landsbergis. I had to get a picture in front of his portrait.

The new Parliament is bright, with plenty of natural light. It exudes an air of transparency and that is no accident. We got to watch a session and a vote…and the students were even in a cut-away shot from the session on the evening news. It was exciting to see this young democracy in action.

That evening was our night at the opera. The opera house is across the street from the hotel and it is a beautiful structure. Built about 30 years ago under Soviet rule, it has glass on three sides with numerous chandeliers lit up. It is a warm and inviting place from the street where one gets a sense of high culture. Everyone dresses well and arrives early for the opera. It is a place to see and be seen. The object is to get there early enough to grab a seat at one of the many bars or tables in the lounge area. Before the show patrons sip Champagne, cognac, espresso, cappuccino, fruit juice or multi-colored fruit concoctions. And what would those drinks be without a great slice of cream filled cake or fruit or the very pretty and colorful bowl of what appears to be Jell-O. After this classy start, it’s time to watch Salome.

Salome is based on a story about John the Baptist, written by a French playwright and interpreted by Oscar Wilde in the late 1800s and adapted as an opera by Richard Strauss. It’s your basic love story with hints of incest, necrophilia and literally losing one’s head. Hey, it’s opera, what do you expect? Most of the students had never seen an opera and had no idea about what they would see. Event those of us who had been to an opera before did not expect to see this interpretation.

There was nothing classic about this staging as was obvious from the start when the performance opens with a half-dozen contemporary soldiers in pink camouflage and Salome dressed in a black trench coat looking like a Hollywood interpretation of a 1940s spy. Then it got weird. The King Herod character was portrayed as an old communist Apparatchik, decked out in his commander’s uniform complete with sash. A communist party red star hung over the stage. There were elites sipping champagne…and peasants with meager rations. And there was a waiter (or bellhop or something). Instead of Salome losing clothing during the dance of the seven veils, the old, evil commie was stripped down to his boxers. But when the head came on stage, it was faithful to the original. All this while the opera was sung in German…with Lithuanian translation flashing above the stage. Not helpful for most of us in interpreting what was going on. But the allegory about the bankrupt communist ideology and how it cannot survive needed no words to interpret.

Friday was one of those days when a lot of little things tried to conspire to keep us from doing what we planned. The idea was to go to the American Center at the US Embassy to watch a Hungarian movie called “Szabadság, szerelem” or “Children of Glory” in English. It is in the European format (PAL) so we needed to watch it there. It took some time for them to get the equipment in place and, once we started watching the film, the power went out twice. Still, we managed to get through the film. It is a fascinating and well-produced love story set against the Hungarian Revolt of 1956 and the Hungarian Water Polo Team victory against the Russians at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics—considered the bloodiest water polo contest ever. It has English subtitles that are very easy to follow. The film is only available in European format and does not appear to be on sale in the US.

In late afternoon we met with a Lithuanian-American who told students how her family escaped the Soviets around 1940…by fleeing to Nazi Germany. It was hard to imagine those kinds of choices or the depravation and tragedy she and her family suffered. She grew up in the United States, became a successful attorney, and now she works on getting Lithuania further on the road to democracy and economic parity with the world. She and her husband split their time between Lithuania and the United States.

The evening was spent at the philharmonic listening to a Russian violinist child prodigy. He was a master who played with tremendous technical procession as well as great feeling. It is remarkable to see complex classical pieces played so well and without any reference to a printed musical score. Some of our students were seeing this type of orchestra for the first time. The conductor was a short Estonian with glasses, wearing a sport coat with collar popped up. Dr. Morgan said he looked like one of SNL’s Mike Myer’s characters. Everyone seemed to have an enjoyable evening.