Olegas Truchanas was instrumental in bringing the beauty of Lake Pedder in Southwest Tasmania to the attention of the Australian and international public in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the lake and its remarkable pink beach being inundated by a dam constructed to produce hydro-electricity.
[1] Sung in Lithuanian and English, the opera's themes are resilience and renewal – qualities that enabled Truchanas to rise from deprivation to find an inner strength and clarity, which he needed to do several times during his life.
In addition to the loss of Lake Pedder, Truchanas suffered through World War II in Lithuania; several years later he lost his home (and his photographic work) in the devastating 1967 Tasmanian fires.
Truchanas drowned in the Gordon River as the flood waters were rising on nearby Lake Pedder.
[2][3] As noted by Gordon Kerry, this work and an earlier opera by Koukias (Tesla – Lightning in His Hand), "explore the lives of individuals concerned with elemental forces".