Aliona Zagurovska, Priscilla Pizzato and director Eric de Lavarène immersed themselves in the daily life of the Kiev Opera, which was lucky not to be bombed, unlike the Mariupol and Mykolaiv Theaters, destroyed in March and October 2022. They filmed, at different times this year, the content of four episodes, broadcast exclusively on Arte’s digital platforms, on August 30, October 25, December 13 and February 24, 2024.
Testify members of the troupe, very reduced since the reopening of the theater, three months after the Russian invasion, on February 24, 2022: the star dancers Natalia Matsak, Sergii Kryvokon, Jan Hana, the singers Liudmyla Monastyrska and Dmitriy Ageev, the conductor orchestra, Mykola Dyadura, the artistic director, Anatoly Solovianenko, and Marya Levitskaya, the costume designer.
A dancer describes his disbelief when he had to quickly pack his bags and leave the city – before returning when the Opera reopened. He testifies, with magnificent strength and lucidity of soul, how he decided to stay despite the guilt of not being at the front, like so many others. But his job is essential to an audience which, at each performance, rushes and relaxes to the show, despite the warnings.
Heartbreak and puzzle
According to Anatoly Solovianenko, the decision to remove Russian works from the repertoire was taken collectively. But we feel in the soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska – she apologizes for it in episode 2, saying she is “from another generation” – the suffering of seeing works dear to her heart and her voice disappear.
Especially when they are replaced by Yaroslav the Wise (1973), a work in the pompier genre that the Kiev Opera brought back from oblivion and which seems to have been written a century earlier by the Ukrainian composer Heorhiy Ilarionovych Maiboroda (1913 -1992), whose name does not appear in the subtitles or credits.
For the dancers, the removal of Tchaikovsky’s music from their repertoire – Swan Lake was scrapped – is heartbreaking. For the ballet La Reine des neiges, which is an 80% compilation of Russian music, the puzzle is multiple: finding alternative compositions that correspond to the steps, the atmosphere and the initial subject.
Two moments in particular touch during the first two episodes that we were able to watch: two popular Ukrainian songs sung naked by Liudmyla Monastyrska and baritone Dmitriy Ageev. As much as the tanks seen through the window, as the alerts and the restrictions, these dignified and simple moments express the drama of this war which one dancer says it “seems to her astounding that it should break out in the 21st century”.
