Vilnius City Opera is an opera company that started in 2006 when a team of independent artists joined forces in staging Giacomo Puccini's La bohème. The artists included director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė, conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius and scene artist Juozas Statkevičius.
The artists have called themselves bohemiečiai (the Bohemians) since this time. After 8 years of activity, the troupe acquired the status of a professional theatre and became known as the Vilnius City Opera.
Vilnius City Opera has no theatre of their own and stage their operas in the Vilnius Congress Concert Hall. One of the main aims of VCO is to make the opera genre more widely available and to free it from elitist stereotypes and snobbishness.
Vilnius City Opera logo
Operas staged by Vilnius City Opera (selected list):
^"D. Ibelhauptaitė apie operos pasaulį: negalime būti snobiški ir elitiniai" (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 2018-11-03. Dažnai opera verčiama elitiniu menu, bet tai pasaulio problema. Operos atstovai negali būti užsidarę snobai, laikantys save elitu, LRT KLASIKAI sako režisierė Dalia Ibelhauptaitė. Anot jos, spektakliai turi kelti ir provokuoti dialogą: „Mano tikslas niekada nebuvo, kad visi sakytų, kokie nuostabūs mano spektakliai. Mano tikslas – kad mano spektakliai keltų aktualias problemas, žmonės galėtų ginčytis."
^"Justina Gringyte Debuts Innovative "e-Carmen" Production at the Vilnius City Opera". Retrieved 2018-11-03. Many people have been anxiously waiting for the new Vilnius City Opera project "e-Carmen", as there is general disbelief that that you can cram the emotions of Carmen into an 'electronic cage'. However, they achieved the impossible – the electronic version of Carmen at Compensa Hall, conducted by Richard Šumila, was as charming as the original with ever-growing curiosity throughout.
