Čiurlionis in the theatre

Rašytiniame Mikalojaus Konstantino Čiurlionio (1875-1911) palikime tėra kelios pastabos, susijusios su scenos menu, tačiau XX a. Lietuvos teatro kultūroje Čiurlionį galima vertinti kaip reikšmingą asmenybę. Straipsnyje pristatomi įvairūs Čiurlionio kūrybos ir teatro ryšiai, išryškinami jo kaip stebėtojo, dalyvio, kūrėjo, įkvėpėjo ir herojaus santykiai su XX-XXI a. pradžios Lietuvos teatro kultūra, aptariami spektakliai, kurių atsiradimą lėmė Čiurlionio asmenybė ir kūryba, kuriuose skamba jo muzika, taip pat scenos kūriniai, parašyti menininko biografijos bei kūrybos motyvais.Direct connections between Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and the theatre are not very numerous. There are only a few hints to the stage arts in his epistolary heritage, primarily about the opera Jūratė that remained unfinished. Still, Čiurlionis’ art has a certain hue of theatricality: his paintings strongly resemble state sets and could be analysed in the context of those artists of the beginning of the twentieth century who were looking for new stage images and spaces, for instance, Edward Gordon Craig, Adolphe Appia, or Ferdynand Ruszczyć. Čiurlionis’ paintings could also be considered as an inspiration to Nicolas Benois, the quite well known set designer of the middle of the twentieth century. There exists more material on Čiurlionis as a theme in the Lithuanian theatre: Juozas Glinskis’ drama Po svarstyklių ženklu (Under the Sign of Libra, 1976; produced in Klaipėda Drama Theatre) and Svajonių piligrimas by Eugenijus Ignatavičius and Jonas Vaitkus (A Pilgrim of Dreams, produced in 1975 in Kaunas Drama Theatre and in 2008 in Vilnius Small Theatre). There were several attempts to explore Čiurlionis’ life and art in less narrative theatrical forms - ballet and dance performances. In the 1970s the choreographer Elegijus Bukaitis started to work on a ballet about Čiurlionis but he did not finish this work. The dance performance Choreografo laiškai MKČ (A Choreographer’s Letters to M.K.Č.) was directed by Jurijus Smoriginas in 2001 at the Vilniaus Baletas theatre of choreographic projects. The ballet Čiurlionis by Giedrius Kuprevičius was produced by a team of Polish artists at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre in 2013. The author of this paper discusses possible connections of Čiurlionis, his life, and art with theatre productions and evaluates their place in the context of Lithuanian culture of the end of twentieth-the beginning of the twenty-first century