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The theatre Utopia invites audiences to its first premiere of the season at the Kaunas City Chamber Theatre, taking place on November 26. This is the chamber opera “The Sailor” by composer Lukas Butkus and director Jonas Kuprevičius, based on the play of the same name by Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa.

This performance is a meditation on the nature of dream and reality, inviting audiences to reconsider the boundaries between life and death, the real and the imagined, past and present time. The opera tells the story of three sisters who keep vigil over the urn of their deceased fourth sister. To pass the time, they share memories of perhaps never-experienced past moments and dreams—one of which concerns a Sailor stranded on a deserted island. Inspired by these narratives, the sisters begin to question the nature of reality, death, and dreams: perhaps they themselves are only illusions within the imagination of an unknown dreamer?

The creators—director Jonas Kuprevičius and composer Lukas Butkus—reveal the themes of Pessoa’s often unstaged work through minimalist means in the format of chamber opera. According to them, the operatic form allows the playfulness of Pessoa’s text to unfold, while music inspired by the spirit of the Baroque era engages with the poetic nature of existential questions raised in the text. “The Sailor” is not only an opera but also an invitation to cross the boundaries between dream and reality and immerse oneself in a musical experience.

“In this production, Pessoa’s play is given a new interpretative perspective, bringing it closer to the present and removing the directorial boundaries outlined by the author. In the chamber opera, the three main soloists perform as sirens, vigil keepers, and funeral hall visitors, as if they had just come from the street. We also introduce the character of the Sailor, absent in the original play, whose presence allows hints of untold parallel stories to emerge alongside the main narrative, connecting what is interrupted by voids in the text. It is also a reinterpretation of mourning rituals and a search for a different relationship with life and death.

Perhaps the best expression of the feeling of ‘The Sailor’ is found in Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet:
‘We are death. What we call life is the sleep of true life…’” (translation A. Musteikis).
“This is what we aim to express in this performance,” says director Jonas Kuprevičius.

Creative team (young Lithuanian artists)

• Composer, librettist: Lukas Butkus
• Director: Jonas Kuprevičius
• Costume designer: Elena Marija Veleckaitė
• Soloists: Salomėja Petronytė, Liepa Ribokaitė, Ūla Marija Zemeckytė, Ignas Ščesnulevičius

The sketch of the work was developed in the MMLAB Space project in 2024.
The first version of the performance was shown on August 7, 2025, in the ConTempo OFF’25 program.

The performance is part of the “Kamerinis plius” program, which aims to develop and meet the need for professional drama theatre in Kaunas, support theatre development and new forms, and provide opportunities for Lithuanian and Kaunas performing arts creators.