Olegas (opera)

Constantine Koukias

Olegas is an opera based on the life of Lithuanian-born Tasmanian wilderness photographer Olegas Truchanas (1923–1972), by Tasmanian (Australian) composer Constantine Koukias, with libretto by Natasha Cica.

Olegas Truchanas was instrumental in bringing the beauty of Lake Pedder in Southwest Tasmania to the attention of the Australian and international public in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the lake and its remarkable pink beach being inundated by a dam constructed to produce hydro-electricity.[1]

Sung in Lithuanian and English, the opera's themes are resilience and renewal - qualities that enabled Olegas Truchanas to rise from deprivation to find an inner strength and clarity - not once but repeatedly throughout his life. In addition to the loss of Lake Pedder, Truchanas suffered through the Second World War in Lithuania and, many years later, the destruction of his home and photographs in the devastating 1967 Tasmanian fires.

Truchanas drowned in the Gordon River as the flood waters were rising on nearby Lake Pedder.

Olegas is a major opera being developed with the support of Truchanas' widow, Melva. In 2007, IHOS Music Theatre and Opera presented excerpts from the work's three acts, the first set in Lithuania, the second in Tasmania up to and including the fires, and the third set in Tasmania during the Pedder campaign.[2][3] As noted by Gordon Kerry, this work and an earlier opera by Koukias, Tesla, "explore the lives of individuals concerned with elemental forces".[4]

References

  1. ^ Sprod, Dan 2006, "Truchanas, Olegas (1923–1972), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian National University and University of Melbourne
  2. ^ The Mercury 2007, "Contrasting program full of drama", 27 September 2007, p. 39
  3. ^ Ruthven, Elizabeth 2007,"Heartening tribute to 'shining Beacon'", the Mercury, 1 October 2007, p. 10
  4. ^ Kerry, Gordon 2009, New Classical Music: Composing Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney

External links