The Artists’ Triumph in Venice – Opera on the Sand

We usually think of opera as a full-length musical composition performed on a stage, with singers wearing historical costumes who sing about passionate love to orchestral music. However, there are other operas, too – concerning contemporary issues and set in everyday spaces. 

Sun & Sea (Marina), an opera-performance, which has won the Golden Lion at the 58th Venice Biennial, is exactly that. The authors of this piece are three well-known Lithuanian artists. Writer Vaiva Grainytė created the libretto – she came up with the opera’s topic, and wrote the dialogues and monologues for the characters. Composer Lina Lapelytė wrote the music, and film director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė was responsible for directing the performance.

The opera takes place on the beach. The soloists and the extras wear bathing suits and sing about the consequences of excessive consumerism on climate change, which we, immersed in everyday life, do not notice. In order to convey this idea, the artists reject the traditional elements of opera, such as a stage or an orchestra. The audience is invited to get involved in the process of the piece, recognising themselves in its characters: ‘Imagine a beach and yourself in it, or better yet – observe everything from above: the scorching sun, sunscreen, colourful bathing suits, sweaty palms and feet. (...) Imagine children shrieking from time to time, laughter, the jingle of an ice cream van in the distance. The musical sound of crashing waves, its calming rhythm (only at this beach and nowhere else). The sound of plastic bags rustling in the wind, their peacefully floating like jellyfish far from the shore. The bellowing of a volcano, an airplane, a motorboat. Then, a choir: a choir of everyday songs, songs of anxiety and boredom, songs about almost nothing. And under all this – the slow creak of the exhausted and exploited Earth, its sigh,’ – says Lucia Pietroiusti, the curator of the Lithuanian pavilion at Biennale Arte in Venice. 

The opera was shown in a specially built pavilion in Venice, located in a Navy building. To set up an artificial beach, 36 tons of sand were brought in from Lithuania’s Gariūnai sand quarry. There were 159 people involved in this project including singers, sound and lighting operators, music and stage set assistants and technicians. Fifty one performers took part in the opera from all over the world – Lithuania, Italy, Brazil, the USA, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Greece and other countries. Volunteers – anyone who registered in advance – were the extras and took the roles of the visitors on the beach. The audience observed the performance from above as if they were the sun itself. 

Sun & Sea (Marina) was performed in Venice in 2019 from the beginning of May until the end of October. The piece was seen by 87.000 people, so it’s little wonder that 2 tons of Lithuanian sand “went for a walk” with the visitors. The rest of the sand was used for the children’s sandpit in Giudecca and for terrain levelling on Sant’Erasmo Island. 

Currently, Sun & Sea (Marina)’s international tour is being planned. It is expected that over the next couple of years the Lithuanian artists’ piece will travel around the world.