Now, Verdi’s unforgiving Dies Irae erupts, a swirl of acceleration and deceleration mezzo-soprano Anastasiia Polishchuk’s delivery pierces the air, and with it her audience’s collective heart.ĭaryna Lytovchenko in the premiere of Yevhen Stankovych’s The Terrible Revenge at Lviv National Opera. The same had happened the day before, and would happen the day after. During the day, through the doors of the nearby former Jesuit – now Greco-Catholic – church wherein military funerals are held, coffins were carried in by their comrades, for benediction, then back down the steps, accompanied by a dirge from a military band and followed by young widows and scores of other mourners in tears. The young fighters and firefighters are enthralled. Verdi’s Requiem is shattering for the usual reasons, but focused by uncanny understatement entirely appropriate for this occasion. Lacrimosa opens with hushed percussion, joined by solo violin – desolate and sparse throughout. If the air raid warning lasts less than an hour, the performance will resume.” Orchestra and choir take their places, followed by Canadian-Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, creator of the international Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra.īucha. We still have culture, and therefore our nation Alina Plakhtiienkoīefore the curtain, an announcement: “In the event of an air raid or siren, we ask you to adjourn to the shelter. The stage is blackened, and on each flank red roses are arranged so that petals fall towards the ground. Lacrimosa by Victoria Polevá, composed in commemoration of the victims of atrocities in that town during the early weeks of the war, followed by Giuseppe Verdi’s epic Messa da Requiem. But also to “The Invincible”: a homage in music to Ukraine’s noble cause and just war.

The occasion marks the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a concert dedicated to the troops who have fallen during this first, monstrous year of war, and the innocent civilian lives lost. For most, it’s a first night at the opera. A contingent of 40 cadets from the city’s emergency firefighting department duly arrives, disarmingly young. They hand these in, so that the coat check looks like a barracks locker room. Some 100 seats tonight have been reserved for serving soldiers, who enter the lobby – a fin-de-siècle wonder – in military fatigues. Men arrive on crutches, two in wheelchairs, through a wintry dusk at the monumental neo-Renaissance opera house in Lviv, western Ukraine.

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