麻豆社

沤ygimantas Kudirka is Lithuania鈥檚 leading spoken-word artist and agent provocateur. A prolific writer and creative artist, he has won Europe鈥檚 Best Slam Poet as well as multiple hip-hop awards, blending satire and social critique with dystopian and futurist themes.

沤ygimantas, who goes by the alias MC Messiah, is shaking up the scene with a new libretto for the opera Brave New Body, teaming up with avant-garde composer Arturas Bum拧teinas. Kudirka鈥檚 texts play with the idea of the human body as a machine, not without his trademark satire, and sets them to the sutartin臈, an ancient polyphonic form found in Lithuania which has Unesco status.

Is it possible to combine centuries-old traditional music with hyper-modern dystopian themes? We sit in on rehearsals with the Lietuva Song and Dance Ensemble leading up to the opera鈥檚 premiere, commissioned by the Operomanija festival in Vilnius.

Presenter John Beauchamp
Producer: John Beauchamp and Bartosz Panek
A Free Range and Overcoat Media co-production for 麻豆社 World Service

Image: 沤ygimantas Kudirka (Credit: Paulius 沤i啪liauskas)