It's the end of the world as we know it

The production Sun & Sea bowled over the judges of Venice Biennale in 2019, awarding the beach opera a Golden Lion. Since then the trio of Lithuanian composers have been all over Europe and the United States.  Everyone has raved about it and for good reason.  Sun & Sea brings opera down to a level anyone can identify with.  Of course, the danger with that is that critics start reading in all sorts of didactic messages, which Vaiva Grainytė said was the last thing on their minds.  She said, "nobody likes being preached to."  True, but at the same time people like reading messages into almost anything.

You view the production from above.  In all its showings, it has been presented as a diorama with the audience allowed to view it from a mezzanine.  This kind of perspective puts the participants in an entirely different light, as you are allowed to move around, not sit fixed to a seat.  They mix singers with everyday people.  The vocals seem random but are well choreographed.  The idea appears to be in some ways similar to Sondheim's endlessly reproduced Sunday in the Park with George but with the apocalyptic edge of Nevil Shute's On the Beach.  You can stay as short or as long as you like, although the running time is about one hour.

An array of relationships are represented that pretty much cover the full spectrum.  This too adds to its appeal, especially since the creators were wise not to indulge in anyone of them.  The participants lie back in various modes of intimacy and you can draw what ever conclusions you like.  Bringing in local persons to fill out the cast further adds to the feeling of intimacy.  Throughout the production one senses a looming danger, but it is never identified.  Instead, the characters point to things out of place, unruly neighbors, and imagine their lives in a virtual reality, as if they can escape this madness. Given all the uncertainty with COVID, the war in Ukraine and the threat of another global recession, this production is very much in demand.  People need this kind of vicarious escape.

We are forever being conditioned to expect an apocalypse.  We see events unfold that threaten danger but till it actually hits us we go on with our lives simply because what else is there to do?  To stop, as many of us were forced to do during the early days of the COVID pandemic, is to increase that sense of dread.  We became afraid to go out.  If we were forced to venture beyond our confinement, we did so with extreme caution as if the air was alive with this new virus.  One gets that tingling sensation watching this production.

I saw Sun & Sea here in Vilnius at an old parking garage where the audience could view the production from the ramps that connected the floors.  A similar multi-story production was shown at the Guggenheim in New York.  This strikes me as the ideal setting, as the further up you go, the smaller the scene becomes, further lending to the "dehumanizing angle," as Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė described it, where we "look at ourselves as if we are another species."  The sense here is like the old operating theater similar to the one pictured in Thomas Eakins' The Agnew Clinic. 

We still have much to worry about.  That sense of dread is always there.  I think this is what the creators wanted to expose.  At any moment, the world can come undone, as REM sang in It's the End of the World As We Know It.  The song is a bit more prosaic and self-indulgent, but somehow Sun & Sea makes you fell as though you will be fine.