Composer Algirdas Kraunaitis to present his new mini opera The Two Sisters
On Friday, 20 May, 2016, 7.30 p.m., the Britten Theatre at the Royal College of Music in London (Prince Consort Road, SW7 2BS) will host the premiere of The Two Sisters, a new opera by Lithuanian composer Algirdas Kraunaitis. The piece is loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.
Every two years, the Royal College of Music offers its students a chance to create an opera and have it performed in collaboration with Bill Bankes-Jones, founder of Tête à Tête, and Lionel Friend, conductor and Musical Director of British Youth Opera. Following the success of Hogarth’s Stages in 2014, this year will see a series of six brand-new mini operas created by RCM composers and performed by outstanding RCM singers. Based on the theme of crime and punishment, marking 150 years since the publication of Dostoyevsky’s famous novel, each opera packs a punch in just fifteen minutes.
This is Kraunaitis‘s second piece to participate in the project: his opera The Bet was sellected in 2014. This year, the composer chose an old scottish ballad about the complex relationship between two sisters as the leitmotif for his new opera. Kraunaitis collaborated with actress and writer Grace Lee-Kho, who wrote the libretto for The Two Sisters.
Algirdas Kraunaitis (b. 1992 in Šalčininkai, Lithuania) is currently in his final year of undergraduate study at the Royal College of Music. As a student at the M.K.Čiurlionis School of Arts in Vilnius, he started as a conductor, but in year 9 he changed his main subject of study to composition. Krainaitis continued studying conducting with R. Gražinis and actively participated in various school activities, including theatrical school productions and piano competitions. At the Royal College of Music, together with composition, he has continued developing his skills as a conductor and a pianist. But composition remained has remained his main passion, which can be seen from the list of pieces he has written and got performed, which include two string quartets as well as many other chamber ensemble compositions, two operas and several orchestral works.
