It wasn’t your usual night at the opera when the Ukrainian National Municipal Opera Kyiv performed Carmen tonight (Thursday 10 March) and Madama Butterfly last night.
The blue and yellow flag of Ukraine was unfurled at the end by members of the cast on stage, singing as the orchestra played the country’s national anthem.
They received a standing ovation and prolonged applause for the anthem “Shche ne vmerla Ukrainas” which translates roughly as “Ukraine has not yet perished”.
If the performers were emotional, so was the audience, with many wiping away tears during and after the performance of the Ukrainian anthem.
Instead of calls for an encore, there were cries of Slava Ukraini – or “glory to Ukraine” – a banned cry of resistance during the Soviet era.
The conductor Vasyl Vasylenko, the artistic director and conductor for the National Municipal Opera and Ballet Theatre, Kyiv, looked moved tonight, as did several cast members.
Vasylenko spent part of his training at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in the late 1980s before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.
Like many of those on stage and in the orchestra pit, he hails from Ukraine and is taking part in a British tour which started in January and runs until May.
Among them was the mezzo-soprano who took the title role of Carmen this evening, Katerina Timbaliuk, from the Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, who thanked the audience.
The tour director Ellen Kent told another news outlet after similar scenes in Malvern at the weekend: “I have worked with a lot of this cast since about 2002 and what is happening to their families is awful.
“With everything happening, I said to them that if they wanted to go back home I would understand, but if they wished to stay I would move heaven and earth to make it happen.
“They are outstanding professionals and we are like family.”
At the end of the very moving Madama Butterfly at Theatre Royal Brighton, Ellen Kent’s tour of the Ukranian State Opera unfurled the blue and yellow flag and sang the Ukranian National anthem to a full standing ovation, applause, cheers and more than a few tears. @TheatreRoyalBTN pic.twitter.com/E18C6hSzK5
— Andrew Kay (@latestandrew) March 9, 2022
I left at the end of the first act of Carmen, and walked back in the fresh air to Hove. The second circle was cramped, and few people wore masks despite signs being held up to ask for this. What’s more, it was very hot. I had a very bad sense that there will be a covid surge.