Opera in two acts for soloists, choir, symphony orchestra, and electronics.
“Kyiv. Summer. War. War, war – endless war. Glissando of sirens tearing the air. They are the loudest now. Unless the great Lavra bell is louder than them. Every morning at nine o’clock it fills the city with its powerful, pure voice like the sea. But the sirens return. Insidiously. At night and during the day. In the morning at dawn. The cruel, unnatural sound of war arrhythmia.
I can tell the story of our time with lines from the opera “Vyshyvanyi”, with the lyrics of its heroes. “This war has been going on for too long to only think about it” – sings the Girl in a duet with Vyshyvanyi… “we must build while there is still a chance… especially since who knows how long this war will last” – and these are the nervous answers of Colonel Bolbochan.
While working on the opera “in pre-war times” (the opera was written in 2019 and staged in October 2021 at the Kharkiv Opera Theater), I was, of course, exclusively concerned with artistic challenges. How to convey the special nerve of Serhiy Zhadan’s poetry through “operatic” means? How to combine the “hero’s expression” with almost adolescent naked sensuality in the part of Vyshyvanyi? How to build a musical dramaturgy around mainly of wartime events… After all, all the events in the opera are somehow connected with the war – the Great (First World War), the liberation struggles of Ukraine for independence. Even the most tender scene with cadets from the youth of Wilhelm von Habsburg is a metaphorical “premonition” of war – the expectations of a cold and terrible winter. After all, how to convey the feeling of a layered consciousness, the “fragility of reality” in the opera, because the main character constantly travels between worlds in his delusions during interrogations in the Lukyanivka prison…
The musical language of the opera is consciously saturated with elements of the “fragile” aesthetics initiated by Berg and Schoenberg. A variety of vocal forms, including combinations of modern academic extended techniques and folk vocals, a wide palette of orchestral sonoristic means, including spectral techniques, and finally electroacoustic sounds and electronic processing of the orchestra and voices in real time, are components that ensured the continuous “variability” of the musical language, the rapid change of the opera’s tebro-texture.
“About war”, about struggle, about love, beauty, about our dreams, our no less complex and fragile reality, I seem to continue to speak in the language of “Vyshyvanyi”… Among the sirens. In a half-sleep. Therefore – loudly. Therefore – tenderly.”
– Alla Zagaykevych, Kyiv, 2026
Credits:
Music composed by Alla Zagaykevych
Libretto by Serhiy Zhadan
Performers:
Volodymyr Kozlov (Vyshyvanyi)
Oleksiy Vetrov (Man In Black)
Armen Kaloyan (Investigator)
Yulia Piskun (Girl)
Serhiy Kryzhnenko (Vyshyvanyi’s Father)
Viacheslav Strelkov (Skoropadskyi)
Yuriy Kudriavtsev (Sheptytskyi)
Serhiy Zamytsyi (Commandant)
Andriy Datsenko (Bolbochan)
Maksym Vorochek, Ihor Bondarenko, Mykyta Marynchak, Kostiantyn Ulybin Serhy Ledeniov, Oleksandr Zolotarenko – (as Students, Soldiers, Skoropadskyi’s Advisors)
Oleksiy Aspidov, Oleksandr Vashchenko, Mykola Voskoboynikov, Denys Hamaliy, Oleksandr Zakharchuk, Oleksandr Kachurovskyi, Vitaliy Kobilinskyi, Gennady Marynenko, Oleksiy Movchan, Mykola Pavlenko, Yevhen Polyovyi, Oleksandr Serhieni, Oleksandr Sydorov, Kostyantyn Skrypnyk, Roman Tkachenko, Yaroslav Fedorenko, Pavlo Yakovchenko – male choir (as Cadets)
Choir of the Kharkiv National Opera – (as Refugees, Hunters, People At The Railway Station In Kolomya, Soldiers Of Skoropadsky)
Symphony Orchestra and Choir of the Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Lysenko Theater/Kharkiv Opera.
Conductor – Yuriy Yakovenko.
Stage Group:
Director-producer – Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi
Conductor-producer – Yuriy Yakovenko
Chorusmaster-producer – Oleksiy Chernikin
Artist- producer – Olesya Holovach
Choreography – Olga Semyoshkina
Electronic part programming – Georhiy Potopalskyi
Video art – Serhiy Horobets
Sound engineer – Mykhailo Alborov
Project producer – Oleksandra Saienko
General project manager from KHARKIV OPERA – Igor Tuluzov
General director-artistic director of KHARKIV OPERA – Oleg Orishchenko
Audio:
Sound engineer of the recording – Mykhailo Alborov
Mixing and mastering – Volodymyr Myndyuk
CD Release:
Design by Nadja Kelm
Production by Dmytfro Fedorenko
Details:
Release date: 03.09.2026
Cat.#: SONG 46
Formats: 2xCD with a booklet (English & Ukrainian cover versions) / Digital
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This release is a recording of the premiere performance on October 2, 2021, at the Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Lysenko Theater.
The opera was created at the request of the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Austria in Kharkiv Vsevolod Kozhemyaka.
