Opera Europa is just back from five days in Ukraine running an audio-visual workshop at Lviv National Opera for the five Ukrainian member theatres of the Opera Europa Next Generation consortium. Multi-camera directors and score readers from Dnipro, Lviv, Odesa and Kyiv (Open Opera Ukraine and the Operetta Theatre) worked intensely on scripting, switching, cropping, framing, backing up, editing …learning the art of loving opera and ballet through a camera lens!
Opera Europa is about bringing the professionals working in opera and ballet closer together - regardless of geographic borders - to learn from each other. These days in Lviv were a powerful reminder about how important the performing arts can be to bring communities together in difficult times. Opera Europa’s Ukrainian theatres are an inspiration. In particular Lviv National Opera which, with impeccable organisation, pulled off two full rehearsals and two excellent peformances of Giselle and Madama Butterfly for our cameras, all the while juggling a schedule of five other sold-out performances during in our visit. This productivity would be the envy of any theatre in peace time and is all the more remarkable given that - as the occasional air raid alarm reminded us - the war, even in the western part of Ukraine, is never far away.
Huge thanks to Vasyl Vovkun and his team in Lviv, as well as Ewa Krasucka and Marcin Dunin-Borkowski from Polish National Opera for leading this training. OperaVision looks forward to sharing with its audiences worldwide some carefully captured performances from Ukraine in the coming years. This inspirational start to Opera Europa Next Generation has been possible thanks to the support of the European Commission.
