THE ABDUCTION OF EUROPE. The chamber opera by Gundega Šmite and Dimitris Maronidis // ARĒNA 2026

Program: The world premiere of the chamber opera by Gundega Šmite and Dimitris Maronidis | Dimitris Maronidis

Featuring: Ensemble EUNOIA, Katrīna Neiburga (set design), Oskars Pauliņš (lighting)

This year the ARĒNA New Music Festival concludes with a special event - the premiere of the chamber opera THE ABDUCTION OF EUROPE by Gundega Šmite and Dimitris Maronidis! In this international project, the composers who live between Latvia and Greece have brought together musicians from the Basel-based ensemble EUNOIA, which specializes in contemporary music, and outstanding Latvian artists - set designer Katrīna Neiburga and lighting designer Oskars Pauliņš. This unique work of art, in which the sound of acoustic instruments intertwines with the sound-shaping possibilities offered by electronics, myths with reality, and subtle video projections with a nuanced lighting score, will be experienced on November 13 at Hanzas Perons.

Quoting the composer and librettist Gundega Šmite: “The myth of the Phoenician princess Europa, abducted by a white bull, takes on new meaning and new resonance in today’s geopolitical climate. More than once there have been concerns about the loss of Europe’s identity, about Europe’s fragmentation and Europe’s weakness both in defending its values and in accepting and integrating new diversity. From today’s perspective, Europe is no longer a young land, but a continent that is aging rapidly. The white bull has returned from time to time, but its return is not divine, rather marked by financial algorithms and selfish conflicts. The abduction of Europe today also echoes in refugee camps, in the silence about drowned children, as well as in a mosaic of self-sufficient territories.

In our view, Europe is strong. It is an inclusive home that cannot be abducted unless it abducts itself. It is capable of changing, growing, while at the same time preserving its identity. In our vision, Europe is still personified as a woman. One might ask - is it now in the decline of its identity, or in a renewed form?

The opera’s final scene will embody hope. It will not be a physically and morally exhausted, collapsing old woman. It will straighten its back and in it all previous stages will be reborn, with Europe attaining immortality.”

GUNDEGA ŠMITE (1977) is a Latvian composer, musicologist, writer, and educator, a lecturer at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, whose creative work gives special importance to the interplay of sound, word, and silence. She studied composition at the JVLMA with Pēteris Plakidis, furthered her studies at the Sibelius Academy of Music in Finland and in international masterclasses, and earned a doctoral degree in the arts for a study devoted to the relationship between music and text in contemporary choral music. Šmite has served as chair of the board of the Latvian Composers’ Union and as artistic director of the ARĒNA New Music Festival; her works have been performed throughout Europe, the USA, Japan, and New Zealand by the Berlin, Swedish, and Latvian Radio Choirs, BBC Singers, Ensemble Lucilin, BIT20, DissonArt Ensemble, and others. For the symphonic work IΩ. Eos, the Goddess of Dawn, the composer received the Grand Music Award in the category Work of the Year. Gundega Šmite lives between Latvia and Greece, and alongside music, literature has in recent years occupied an increasingly important place in her creative world - the miniatures collection Greek Suite, the book The Wonderful World of Opera, and the short story collection Concert in Stories have been published.

DIMITRIS MARONIDIS (1980) is a Greek composer whose creative work brings together acoustic and electroacoustic music, multimedia, interactive technologies, and algorithmic compositional processes. He is particularly interested in the possibilities technology offers for exploring and expanding the qualities of sound, striving in his works to combine traditional instruments with an electronic and digitally shaped sound space. Maronidis studied composition at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki, musicology at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, and computer music at the Institute of Psychoacoustics (IPSA), and earned his doctorate in composition at the University of York in the United Kingdom. As a Fulbright scholar, he conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University and was a guest artist at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology (ICST) at the Zurich University of the Arts. Maronidis is the founder and director of the Iannis Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition, works at the Contemporary Music Laboratory of Aristotle University, and teaches in the university’s Department of Music. His compositions, installations, and performances have been heard in many parts of the world, performed by ensembles such as the Orchestre symphonique de Lorraine, the State Orchestras of Athens and Thessaloniki, Nieuw Ensemble, Quatuor Diotima, dissonArt ensemble, and others. maronid.webpages.auth.gr

The Basel-based Ensemble EUNOIA brings together musicians united by a special interest in contemporary music, the search for new sounds, and close collaboration with living composers. The ensemble’s core took shape while its members were studying for a master’s degree in contemporary music at the Basel Academy of Music, and since its founding in 2011 EUNOIA has performed at major European new music forums and concert venues, including Wien Modern, the Luxembourg Philharmonie, Gare du Nord in Basel, and La Scène nationale d’Orléans, as well as in Berlin, London, Edinburgh, Moscow, and elsewhere. In 2015 the ensemble became a laureate of the prestigious Swiss contemporary music competition Concours Nicati.

EUNOIA’s distinctive creative signature is based not only on performing contemporary works, but on active participation in their creation - collaborating with composers during the creative process and seeking a unique sonic identity for each work. The ensemble’s versatility allows it to move freely between chamber music, music theater, performance, and opera, with the instrumentalists also becoming storytellers and participants in stage action. eunoiaquintett.com/ensemble

KATRĪNA NEIBURGA (1978) is one of the internationally best-known Latvian contemporary artists, whose creative work spans video art, installation, performance, photography, as well as set design and video projections for theater and opera productions. She has represented Latvia at the 56th Venice Biennale of Art, participated in the Sydney, Moscow, Kochi, and Riga biennials, and her works have been exhibited in more than 25 countries. Neiburga is a recipient of the Purvītis Prize, the Excellence Award in Culture, and the Grand Music Award twice, and has created more than 40 set designs for theater and opera productions in Latvia and abroad. neiburga.lv

OSKARS PAULIŅŠ (1989) is one of Latvia’s leading lighting designers, having created lighting scores for more than one hundred theater and opera productions, as well as concerts, exhibitions, and large-scale outdoor events. He has worked in all Latvian theaters and at the Latvian National Opera, as well as on international stages, including the Lyon Opera and the Athens Epidaurus Festival. Pauliņš is a four-time winner of the Spēlmaņu nakts Award, and among his international works is the Lyon Opera production of The Queen of Spades, which Opernwelt magazine named the best production of 2024.

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ARĒNA is a contemporary music festival that has, since 2002, each autumn brought together composers, performers, and listeners of new music from many countries of the world in Latvian concert halls. The festival motto HEAR THE FUTURE! contains the festival’s main idea and goal - to present the diversity of contemporary music in all its splendor, promoting the creation, performance, and documentation of new music.

This year, from October 27 to November 13, ARĒNA will take place for the 25th time, inviting audiences to encounter light and darkness, faith and fear, prophecies and myths, silence, electronics, and unheard sounds in five concerts. The festival will open with the Pēteris Vasks Quartet featuring music by Pēteris Vasks, Arvo Pärt, and Olivier Messiaen, and will close with one of ARĒNA’s most ambitious events - the premiere of the chamber opera “The Abduction of Europe” by Gundega Šmite and Dimitris Maronidis. Two world premieres will also be especially anticipated at the concert “Prophecies” - new works by Klaus Lang and Santa Bušs. Composer Santa Bušs is also opening a new chapter in the festival’s history this autumn by becoming ARĒNA’s artistic director.

As one of Latvia’s longest-running new music festivals, ARĒNA has never stopped searching for what will come next in music. This autumn, that gaze toward the future also gains a dimension of mystery and premonition. The festival invites you to look into a world where the known meets the unknown, light meets darkness, and reality meets myth: from the spiritual light and trust in God in the music of Pēteris Vasks, Arvo Pärt, and Olivier Messiaen to the lure of darkness, fear, and the unpredictability of electronic sound; from prophecies and ritual to Morton Feldman’s fragile, almost weightless sound space. At the festival’s conclusion, myth will enter our own time in the chamber opera “The Abduction of Europe,” bringing the ancient story face to face with Europe today.

Four ARĒNA concert evenings will take place at the Riga Reformed Church, while the festival finale - the premiere of the chamber opera “The Abduction of Europe” - will be at Hanzas Perons. All concerts begin at 7:00 PM.

More: arenafest.lv

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