‘Fifteen years ago, I was sitting on the grass with Lina Lapelytė in the little town of Kražiai, Lithuania, discussing potential themes for a new opera. We were young and enthusiastic, and so was the production house OPEROMANIJA, which had initiated collaborations between creators from different fields.

During our brainstorm, my ex-partner called me and described a shopping experience in vivid detail: “The cashier lady who was scanning my bread was having some tubes attached to her back. I think they are not allowed to go to the bathroom!” This disturbing image fueled my imagination, and became the very first lines of the chorus – about a full bladder and daydreaming of the summer resort Palanga (in the English version it became Miami Beach). Lina composed a catchy tune, which ended up becoming the conceptual framework for the entire piece: music resembling the monotony of the checkout conveyor belt, repetitive songs, static cashiers, an opera about the routine of buying and selling (an ode to “daily nothing,” as Jonas Mekas would say).

We invited Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė to join the project, and our little sketch gradually became developed by three authors: Lina (composer and musician), Rugilė (director and set designer), and me (writer and poet).

I didn’t conduct interviews with cashiers, though I once talked with a friend’s mom who had worked at a grocery store, which gave me the helpful idea to avoid overly direct language. Instead of quoting facts about (in)human labor conditions, talk about low salaries, the abusive climate, and the emotional exhaustion of the workers, I chose a poetic, metaphorical, and ironic approach: “I WISH I COULD SIT IN A HOLLOW / FAR FROM IT ALL, PINCHING AN OWL,” sings the cashier chorus after an exhausting shift

The stories were already present in my mind without needing further research: the Art Critic’s aria riffs on the personal crisis I had after graduating; the Emigrant’s Mother aria reflects on the socioeconomic landscape of our region (the invocation of Brexit and Skype make this song more vintage yet still acutely relevant); the forgetful and clumsy New Girl expresses some of the collective anxiety we each felt entering an unfamiliar field; the Member of a National Minority stands for the voice of people who follow different holiday calendars as most Europeans (after 2022, the wave of Orthodox Christian refugees and emigrants fleeing the war in Ukraine gave this song new connotations).

I wrote the libretto in short bits and shared them with the collaborators. Rugilė scouted professional and amateur choirs, jazz bands, and opera venues, looking for faces that matched the text. The chosen ladies were invited for further auditions, followed by a tea session. We wanted to get to know their psychological constitution, temperament, and, very importantly, vocal qualities. Lina wrote the character-specific melodies, to capture the aura and psyche of each character. This means that none of the singers were acting. For instance, the singer who performs Ms. Healthy, an ecstatic optimist, has an extremely bright and warm personality. She genuinely means the slightly humorous words of wisdom she sings – “Every single day is a gift!” – which helped her with her own grief after the loss of her husband.

The manner of our artistic division of labor –working both individually and collectively – mirrors the structure of the piece itself. It’s a work made of solo bits that pulse and grow into a single, unified chorus. The collective effort towards patience and acceptance creates space for these individual artistic practices to hatch.

– Vaiva Grainytė, e-flux Journal, May 2025