Opera

Sun & Sea (Capsule Review)

Laura Hess

07 Jan 2022 • 2 min read

The setting is a fake beach. It’s inside a museum’s gallery. The “beach” is comprised of sand and performers are dressed in bathing suits, wetsuits, and casual summer garb. They lounge about on their towels or beach chairs, snacking, reading, and chatting. Surrounding them is metal scaffolding. Masked museum goers line the edges of the scaffolding, peering down on the scene. — Photo: Laura Hess

[Original publication: No Proscenium, 10/19/21]

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Pre-2019, I doubt anyone had the following on their bingo card: an operatic production rooted in our climate crisis and set on a faux beach as vacationers sing poetic about life’s mundanities and magnitudes. And yet, at that year’s Venice Biennale, the team of Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, and Lina Lapelytė presented such a production to great effect and fanfare; Sun & Sea was awarded the highest honor at the exhibition.

Premiering in Lithuania in 2017, the performance was translated into English for the Venice Biennale and only recently traveled stateside to tour four U.S. cities. For just three days, MOCA hosted the production in partnership with the Hammer Museum and CAP UCLA. Touring vocalists were locally supported by Tonality, an LA-based choral ensemble specializing in concerts with themes of social justice.

Ten tons of sand created the seaside setting and performers delivered crystalline harmonies — often from a completely reclined position — amidst the standard beach-going activities: sunbathing, badminton, card games, surfing, knitting, crosswords, endless snacking, and fetch (yes, a dog was one of the performers). Lyrics about romance, sunscreen application, workaholic tendencies, and resort packages mingled with ones of pollution, extinction, algae blooms, and bleached coral.

And now, in 2021, perched atop scaffolding, the masked audience peered down on the manufactured scene, emphasizing the production’s zoo-like, scientific quality. The same year of Sun & Sea’s international premiere, a Swiss art curator created an environmental memorial, For Forest, which consisted of 300 trees planted in an Austrian sports stadium. The installation “imagined a world where trees would only exist like species of animals in a zoo.” Great art alone cannot solve our climate emergency, but powerful, experiential works like Sun & Sea and For Forest, which reframe our most pivotal challenge, are worth celebrating.