Our Violeta

Performance-concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of singer Elena Ciudakova.

The author and director of the idea – Eglė Tulevičiūtė. Participants: actress Odeta Pocevičiūtė, singers Irena Zelenkauskaitė, Elzė Liškauskaitė, Regimantas Gabšys, pianist Lina Giedraitytė, pupils of the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Arts and the Vilnius Balys Dvarionas Ten-Year-Old School of Music Lėja Kezytė and Sofija Šalnaitė

Elena Čiudakova – 100

On 1 May this year, we will celebrate the centenary of Elena Ciudakova (1925-1973) in the cosy Music Living Room. She died in the very flower of her creative powers, before her forty-eighth birthday, stricken by oncological disease. In the minds of the audience, she was so much a part of the character of Violeta in Verdi’s opera La Traviata that people began to call her simply “Our Violeta”.

E. Čiudakova’s whole life was really the stage. Here she would forget her troubles and move into another world of great emotions. At the end of her short life, the stage became her medicine. As soon as she rose from her bed of sickness, she was ready to sing again. She made no concessions to herself, accepted no allowances or vouchers that would help her but harm her music. She sang until she fainted, as if in a hurry to give as much of herself as she could to people, to sing her heart out.