Photo by Olegas Truchanas
Olegas
by Constantine Koukias - Libretto Natasha Cica
2007 Staged Excerpts Playhouse Theatre Hobart
An opera with film in three parts, sung in Lithuanian & English, This work celebrates the extraordinary life of Olegas Truchanas (1923-1972)
In August 2007 IHOS launched a very special fundraising campaign to support the ongoing development of this work. By special permission a rarely seen photograph of Lake Pedder by Olegas Truchanas is currently for sale. More...
Olegas explores a man's lifelong search for identity and belonging. The force through which our hero finds it, also takes him away. The opera's themes are resilience and renewal - qualities that enable Olegas Truchanas to rise from deprivation to find an inner strength and clarity - not once but repeatedly throughout his life.
ACT I
In his youth in 1930s Lithuania, Olegas Truchanas is poised to become an Olympic yachtsman. Passionate about nature and the people close to him, he embraces challenge and lives life to the full. The invasion of Lithuania by Nazi and Soviet armies shatters his dreams and destroys the life he has known. He loses his friends, his family - including his beloved grandmother - and his homeland. In a displaced persons' camp in Munich he is offered the chance to leave Europe. Olegas chooses Australia - as far away as he can go from the horrors he has experienced.
ACT II
In Hobart, Tasmania, Olegas works as a labourer in the Electrolytic Zinc Works. He is isolated, lonely, even cynical, until the Tasmanian wilderness draws him out through his love of nature. He develops his photographic talent. He finds a circle of friends among the artists in Hobart, falls in love with and marries Melva. Frustrated by the push for development at the cost of Tasmania's unique environment, Olegas explores its remote wilderness, capturing his journeys with his camera - and is the first to kayak the Gordon River from Lake Pedder to Macquarie Harbour. Melva struggles to understand this charismatic and complex man and to maintain their family. Olegas' skills as a photographer grow as he begins to connect more deeply with the Tasmanian landscape; he builds a home for his young family. The terrible bushfires sweeping south-eastern Tasmania in 1967 destroy this home and all of his slides and photographs.
ACT III
Alone in a burnt-out landscape, Olegas revisits the sense of futility he experienced at the end of the war. But the beauty of Lake Pedder regenerates his hope and spirit - and supported by Melva and his friends, he goes on. The Hydro-Electric Commission threatens to flood Lake Pedder. Olegas and his friends determine to show the public what they will lose, and stage extraordinary showings of Olegas' photographic slides in Hobart's Town Hall. Olegas inspires these audiences, but the plan to inundate the lake proceeds. Lake Pedder is lost - but Olegas will not give up the fight. He knows more of the wilderness is under threat, so he embarks on another river trip to replace the photographs burnt in the 1967 fires. He farewells his friends and Melva as they plan their next steps. Alone on the river, Olegas celebrates his new-found sense of wholeness, his rightful place in nature, his path in this new land. The river folds around him. The kayak flips, and rises slowly without him.
An opera with film in three parts, sung in Lithuanian & English, This work celebrates the extraordinary life of Olegas Truchanas (1923-1972)
In August 2007 IHOS launched a very special fundraising campaign to support the ongoing development of this work. By special permission a rarely seen photograph of Lake Pedder by Olegas Truchanas is currently for sale. More...
Olegas explores a man's lifelong search for identity and belonging. The force through which our hero finds it, also takes him away. The opera's themes are resilience and renewal - qualities that enable Olegas Truchanas to rise from deprivation to find an inner strength and clarity - not once but repeatedly throughout his life.
ACT I
In his youth in 1930s Lithuania, Olegas Truchanas is poised to become an Olympic yachtsman. Passionate about nature and the people close to him, he embraces challenge and lives life to the full. The invasion of Lithuania by Nazi and Soviet armies shatters his dreams and destroys the life he has known. He loses his friends, his family - including his beloved grandmother - and his homeland. In a displaced persons' camp in Munich he is offered the chance to leave Europe. Olegas chooses Australia - as far away as he can go from the horrors he has experienced.
ACT II
In Hobart, Tasmania, Olegas works as a labourer in the Electrolytic Zinc Works. He is isolated, lonely, even cynical, until the Tasmanian wilderness draws him out through his love of nature. He develops his photographic talent. He finds a circle of friends among the artists in Hobart, falls in love with and marries Melva. Frustrated by the push for development at the cost of Tasmania's unique environment, Olegas explores its remote wilderness, capturing his journeys with his camera - and is the first to kayak the Gordon River from Lake Pedder to Macquarie Harbour. Melva struggles to understand this charismatic and complex man and to maintain their family. Olegas' skills as a photographer grow as he begins to connect more deeply with the Tasmanian landscape; he builds a home for his young family. The terrible bushfires sweeping south-eastern Tasmania in 1967 destroy this home and all of his slides and photographs.
ACT III
Alone in a burnt-out landscape, Olegas revisits the sense of futility he experienced at the end of the war. But the beauty of Lake Pedder regenerates his hope and spirit - and supported by Melva and his friends, he goes on. The Hydro-Electric Commission threatens to flood Lake Pedder. Olegas and his friends determine to show the public what they will lose, and stage extraordinary showings of Olegas' photographic slides in Hobart's Town Hall. Olegas inspires these audiences, but the plan to inundate the lake proceeds. Lake Pedder is lost - but Olegas will not give up the fight. He knows more of the wilderness is under threat, so he embarks on another river trip to replace the photographs burnt in the 1967 fires. He farewells his friends and Melva as they plan their next steps. Alone on the river, Olegas celebrates his new-found sense of wholeness, his rightful place in nature, his path in this new land. The river folds around him. The kayak flips, and rises slowly without him.
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Photography by Peter Mathew
