The Prague State Opera will present a concert that will symbolically support those suffering in the war conflict and will offer arias and excerpts from Czech, Italian, French, but also Ukrainian musical works performed by leading Ukrainian performers.
Katerina MotlovaPRPublished 12/10/2023
On the evening of October 21st, from 7:00 p.m., arias by well-known authors and compositions by Ukrainian composers will be performed by eight Ukrainian soloists accompanied by the State Opera Choir and Orchestra under the direction of its music director Andriy Yurkevich .
The central theme will be the theme of hope and the opening short composition We Are , which was written by Ukrainian composer Yuri Shevchenko shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 , based on the melody of the Ukrainian national anthem Ukraine Has Not Died Yet . The anthem was banned during the years of Ukraine’s incorporation into the USSR and only returned with perestroika. “I wanted it to sound all over the world as a silent and clear prayer for Ukraine,” composer Yuri Shevchenko said about the composition We Are .
“This will be an exceptional musical event created in collaboration with top Ukrainian artists. We continue to support the efforts for freedom and independence of a great European state, with which we are connected by natural cultural ties and shared common values,” emphasizes Jan Burian , General Director of the National Theatre .
After the opening composition Jsme, Ukrainian soprano Sofia Solovy will perform the prayer of Princess Libuše from Smetana’s opera of the same name, which is intended to symbolically express solidarity with the enslaved nations and give them hope and courage. The concert program will offer famous arias from operas by Bedřich Smetana, Giuseppe Verdi, Jules Massenet, Gaetano Donizetti and Giacomo Puccini in the first part. The second part will be a journey of discovery into the known and unknown history and present of Ukrainian music. The program will present the work of prominent Ukrainian composers (Yuri Shevchenko, Mykola Lysenko, Semen Hulak-Artemovsky, Yakiv Stepovy, Klimenty Dominchen, Yuliy Mejtus, Myroslav Skoryk and Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky) performed by eight Ukrainian singers working in Ukraine and abroad, many of whom will be heard here for the first time.
“We are organizing this concert in solidarity with our friends and colleagues in war-torn Ukraine and we will support them wholeheartedly,” says Per Boye Hansen , Artistic Director of the National Theatre Opera and the State Opera, and continues: “The Music Director of the State Opera, Andriy Yurkevych, thinks of his compatriots constantly. We are glad that he has now managed to invite some of the best Ukrainian opera singers to Prague.”
The concert will take place at the State Opera House, designed by renowned architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer. The same architects also designed the opera house in Odessa, where Andriy Yurkevych, the current music director of the State Opera, served as music director.