Guests | CLARA: A Play-Concert

“CLARA” | A PLAY-CONCERT INSPIRED BY THE LIFE AND WORK OF GERMAN PIANIST AND COMPOSER CLARA SCHUMANN (1819–1896)

November 26, 6:00 p.m.

A play-concert about the life, work and love of the exceptional German pianist and composer Clara Schumann.

Concept and script: GUODA GEDVILAITĖ, BIRUTĖ MAR. Director: BIRUTĖ MAR. Choreographer and assistant director: SIGITA MIKALAUSKAITĖ. Set designer: INDRĖ PAČĖSAITĖ. Video projection designer: MARIUS VILČINSKAS. Lighting designer: AUDRIUS JANKAUSKAS. Starring BIRUTĖ MAR, with pianist GUODA GEDVILAITĖ. Duration: 1 hour 20 minutes.

“Clara” is a play-concert combining music and theatre, telling the life story of the renowned German composer and pianist Clara Schumann (1819–1896). Clara Schumann’s life is shrouded in legends. Showing exceptional talent as a pianist from childhood, Clara Josefine Wieck—the daughter of Friedrich Wieck, a strict and well-known piano teacher of the time—began performing in concerts and composing music at the age of eleven. By nineteen, she was already a celebrated pianist, touring Germany, Austria and France. Clara became one of the few women in Europe at the time to perform professionally as a pianist.

Clara soon married the young composer Robert Schumann. At her husband’s request, she tried to give up her piano career and devote herself to her family, having as many as eight children. Fate brought another great composer into their home: Johannes Brahms, who fell in love with Clara, fourteen years his senior. Like Alice in a looking-glass world, Clara travels through worlds of music and love, surrounded by eight children and her husband Robert Schumann, a brilliant dreamer, while trying not to abandon her calling or give up her intensive concert career.

In this play-concert, Clara Schumann’s story is told through Clara and Robert Schumann’s compositions, performed by pianist Guoda Gedvilaitė, and excerpts from their letters and diaries, as well as recollections of their contemporaries. These excerpts have been translated into Lithuanian for the first time and are interpreted by actress Birutė Mar. In the music world, pianist Guoda Gedvilaitė is often called “the Lithuanian Clara Schumann.”

“Clara” is the story of a talented woman caught between art and family, love and duty, her personal calling and the roles society imposed on her. The performance invites audiences to take a fresh look at the life and music of one of the most prominent artists of the 19th century.

More information about the performance and photos can be found on our website: https://soloteatras.lt/spektakliai/clara-meiles-daina/