Watch a Ukrainian music drama on World Opera Day

From our partners at OperaVision:

OperaVision, Opera Europa’s freeview streaming platform funded by the European Commission, also celebrates World Opera Day with an unprecedented international online co-production and a fundraising campaign for the Ukrainian opera sector.

Set in the Ukraine’s Carpathian mountains in 13th century, Golden Crown is an epic love story of the love, loss, betrayal, class, stolen land and national pride – all of which conspire against the star-crossed villager Maxim Berkut and his beloved Myroslava, the daughter of a local nobleman.

Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky wrote Golden Crown in 1929 colouring it with local folk intonations, when the policy of ‘korenizatsiya’ (going back to the roots) was allowed in the country. By the 1930s, however, the opera was dismissed as a ‘formalist’, as, according to one critic at the time, ‘bare formalism prevails in the opera under the harmful influence of modernism, and the folk song is distorted for purely formalistic reasons.’ In Soviet times, such works were primarily judged according to political rather than aesthetic criteria.

Lyatoshynsky’s touching and beautifully composed Golden Crown re-emerges today thanks to OperaVision. Released on 25 October 2022 at 19:00 CET to mark World Opera Day, this production is the fruit of a collaboration between seven cities: Helsinki, Lviv, London, Rome, San Francisco, Warsaw and Washington DC. Young artists from Finnish National Opera, Lviv National Opera, Royal College of Music, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, San Francisco Opera, and Polish National Opera each perform a scene from Golden Crown. The production is narrated by Ukrainian artists attending the Shenandoah University, near Washington DC, where Ella Marchment, who initiated and directs this production, is Director of Opera.

Today, as the opera community stands shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, OperaVision is happy find new admirers for Ukrainian culture across the world.

Watch the opera here.

Opera Europa now calls on the generosity of audiences worldwide to donate to its fundraising campaign to support the next generation of opera singers and managers from Ukraine. Details here.