“Ballet CARMEN is a one-act performance, based on G. Bizet-R. Shchedrin’s “Carmen Suite,” with holographic video installations.

The fatal image of Carmen has been stimulating the imagination of artists from various fields for over a hundred years. We owe this to Prosper Merime. Both the director and choreographer Marija Simona Šimulynaitė were inspired by his novella. According to her, the central axis of the work is not Carmen, but the stories of men, their fates, which this woman entangled like spiderwebs. It is a drama of suffering men.

The ballet performance, like the novella, begins with reverse chronology – with Don José reaching the brink of madness, losing morality and hope, realizing that death awaits, he tells his story to a chance traveler, where Carmen will put the final point.

It is very important that the audience does not expect to see the usual Carmen on stage. This version is different. She is a woman resembling a chameleon. At one moment, she is sexual, sensitive, and tempting, at another – rough, masculine, domestic, as if hissing like a snake. Her range of emotions is very wide and constantly changing. Carmen longs to die and be reborn, she seeks a new beginning in the next life through self-destruction, says the director and choreographer.

“The role of Carmen is every ballerina’s dream,” says director and choreographer M. S. Šimulynaitė, entrusting the main role of the ballet to Evelina Fokina. The lovers of Carmen will be embodied by dancers – Pijus Ožalas (Don José), Simonas Laukaitis (toreadors Escamillo), Danielius Voinovas (lieutenant, traveler), such a ballet production of such a small composition will probably be unique not only in Lithuania, but also in the world, and technically realized – very complex.

This performance is a joint project of the Baltic Ballet Theater (BBT) and the Panevėžys Music Theater.

The one-act ballet for four dancers and holograms created by director Maria Simona Šimulynaitė of BBT based on G. Bizet-R. Shchedrin’s “Carmen Suite” will be the first version of this work, in which special attention is paid to technology: holographic video projections will merge into the dramaturgy of the performance as a separate character.

The performance uses the legendary recording of Saulius Sondeckis and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra.

Director and choreographer – Maria Simona Šimulynaitė, founder of Baltic Ballet Theater BBT
Video projection creator – Vytautas Žarnauskas
Set and costumes – Erlandas Smolskas, Egidijus Rainys
Lighting designers – Mantas Bartusevičius
Ballet soloists – Evelina Fokina, Pijus Ožalas, Simonas Laukaitis, Danielius Voinovas”