Joyce DiDonato and Time for Three - Emily

Joyce didonato for the first time in lithuania

For more than two decades, the name Joyce DiDonato has held an exceptional place at the pinnacle of the world's classical music scene. A three-time Grammy Award winner, as well as a recipient of the Gramophone Award, Echo Klassik Award, International Opera Awards, and the Laurence Olivier Award, she is deservedly considered the most decorated and influential opera singer of our time. Her performances grace the stages of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Vienna State Opera, the Paris National Opera, and the programs of the world's most important music festivals.

Critics call her voice an exceptional phenomenon in contemporary music. The New York Times wrote of DiDonato: "Her voice is nothing less than 24-karat gold," and BBC Music called her "one of the most perfect singers in history." However, the phenomenon of Joyce DiDonato lies not only in her exceptional vocal mastery. Each of her performances becomes a major artistic event, combining music, theater, poetry, and deep human experience.

For her first performance in Lithuania, Joyce DiDonato will present her latest project, "Emily: No Prisoner Be" – one of the most significant musical works of recent years. It is a spectacular collaborative project created with the Grammy-winning ensemble Time for Three and Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts, one of the most important contemporary American composers. The world premiere of the work took place in 2025 at the Bregenz Festival and immediately garnered immense international attention.

The work is based on the poems of the great American poet Emily Dickinson. From more than 1,800 of her texts, a cycle of twenty-four interconnected musical scenes was created, telling the story of the search for inner human freedom. Following Dickinson's words, the music leads the listener from loneliness and self-limitation toward love, self-discovery, inner strength, and spiritual liberation.

"Emily: No Prisoner Be" is difficult to call a traditional vocal cycle. It is a work that exists at the intersection of chamber opera, theater, concert, and poetic drama. Kevin Puts has created music in which the emotional directness of American musical traditions blends with operatic scale and contemporary musical language. Joyce DiDonato's vocal part requires not only exceptional technique but also a massive dramaturgical range, turning each poem into an independent story.

Time for Three, one of the most original classical music ensembles of today, plays a special role in the project. Grammy winners and regular partners of the world's most famous orchestras, they combine classical music, jazz, American folk traditions, and elements of popular culture in their work, creating a unique sound that cannot be attributed to any single genre.

The American press received the premiere with great enthusiasm. The New York Times wrote that Joyce DiDonato and Time for Three "brought this work to life with extraordinary power," and that the singer's voice "unfolded from a powerful dramatic sound to the thinnest, almost imperceptible thread of sound." Other critics called the project one of the most important new vocal works in recent years and emphasized the exceptional artistic ambition of its creators.