Opera singers in the Ukrainian city Kharkiv They will perform in public again, twenty months after the Russian invasion Their country It began and air raids made performances impossible.
Performances will be given in the theater’s underground storage room Kharkivwhich served as an air raid shelter for several months.
Ukraine’s second city, located in the northeast of the country, banned large public events when Russia invaded the country in February 2022. The city is regularly hit by missiles that take just 45 seconds from the moment they hit. They are expelled Across the Russian border, 30 kilometers away.
State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet Kharkiv She outfitted the basement with a stage, a makeshift orchestra pit, and rows of chairs. A rehearsal was held Friday for theater staff, friends and family.
“We missed performing on stage,” company member Olena Starikova told reporters.
The huge theater was designed in the Soviet era to serve as a conference hall for Communist Party members, said Andrey Torlubekov, the theater’s chief architect. ‘The building can bear a lot. The elite it was designed for needs to be safe. The theater is called the “Aircraft Carrier”.
Peter van Amelrooy
The Kharkiv Ballet and Opera Company hasn’t been twiddling its thumbs for months: I performed hundreds of small shows at locations“, writes The Guardian.
