Worth the Journey: Madama Butterfly in Vilnius
In the cold of January, I travelled 1,300 miles to Lithuania to see Anthony Minghella’s production of Madama Butterfly, which I could have seen much closer to home. Even by my standards you would have thought this crazy, but the return air fare from Leeds to Vilnius (£30.48) was at least as cheap as a rail ticket to London. More importantly, the trip enabled me to explore my roots: my grandfather Aaron was born in Vilnius and the genealogist in the family put me in touch with two Ogus (more specifically its feminine variant Ogusaite) sisters from Lithuania whose father had managed to survive the slaughter of the 1940s. It was fascinating to glean from Rima and Vida what they knew of the family history, but also to learn about the extraordinary changes to their country that resulted from the break-up of the Soviet Union.