Crouched on the edge of Taras Shevchenko park in the frontline city of Kharkiv, 19 miles (30km) from the Russian border, the city’s vast opera house resembles a battered spacecraft that has crashlanded after some epic intergalactic battle.
The Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet theatre (Khnatob) building, opened in 1991 after about 25 years under construction, is the largest theatre in Ukraine. Locally, it is nicknamed “the aircraft carrier”.
The massive structure, with its overhanging upper storeys faced in volcanic stone from Armenia, was originally conceived, according to the company’s director of opera, Oleksii Duhinov, as a Communist party congress hall, with its 19x48-metre stage large enough to accommodate displays of military vehicles. But midway through construction it was reimagined as a theatre, on the insistence of an opera-loving member of the Moscow nomenklatura.
To compare the opera house to a ship or spacecraft may be fanciful – but the scars of battle are all too real.
On 1 March last year, during a ferocious bombing campaign against the city, Russia hit Kharkiv’s main Svobody (Freedom) Square, severely damaging the city hall. Buildings for blocks around were affected – including the opera house. As the bombings continued over the following days and weeks, it had many of its windows blown out, was mauled by shrapnel, and hit by debris from intercepted missiles.
Ukraine successfully defended Kharkiv. But missile strikes, though less intense than during those first spring months of 2022, continue almost daily in Ukraine’s second city, with air raid alarms frequent and visits to bomb shelters routine for residents.
Unlike Kyiv, Kharkiv is not protected by a Patriot air defence system capable of shooting down missiles as they approach. Duhinov was speaking two days after two S300 missiles exploded in the city at about 11pm, and the day before a major attack in which six hit the southern suburbs just after 5.30am. And in early October, the Russians hit the city centre, a few blocks from the opera house, killing a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother.
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, much of the opera house’s company was evacuated, said Duhinov. Ballet dancers, opera singers and orchestral musicians, plus backstage staff – about 250 people in total – got out to Lithuania. They have been touring ever since, in Slovakia, Italy, France, Belgium and Moldova, earning as much income as they can.
In Kharkiv, a tiny handful of the company is in situ: 20 musicians, 16 chorus members, four dancers and nine operatic soloists. Ten of the company are serving in the army. One member of the technical department has been killed on the frontline.
In this, the 148th season of the company, the tiny core of remaining artists is battling on in Kharkiv to bring live music, song and dance to the city – it is “the only company that’s working and bringing concerts to Kharkiv”, said Duhinov.
“Our mission No 1 is to preserve the company and the theatre,” he said. “If the artists don’t work they lose their skills. They are like athletes – they need to keep in training.”
The main auditorium remains closed for performances. But the company holds regular free concerts in a city-centre underground car park, and also travels to frontline or formerly occupied towns to the south of Kharkiv, such as Izium and Sloviansk. Since September last year, it has managed to give 278 small-scale recitals.
The singers often perform for troops or volunteers. On a warm September afternoon, five soloists were gamely turning their huge, highly trained operatic voices to O Sole Mio, I Did it My Way and a handful of Ukrainian pop hits to entertain a group of Red Cross volunteers in an office not far from the opera house.
It was a world away from dominating the main stage in a production of an opera by Verdi or Puccini. “It was difficult for our soldiers to listen to opera,” said Duhinov of the recitals the company has given as little as three miles (5km) from the frontline. “We have had to develop a programme with more pop repertoire. We understand that when we perform for soldiers we need to boost their morale and help them relax.”
Back in the opera house, a quartet of dancers is rehearsing in one of the sunlit ballet studios before a trip to Germany in the autumn.
In a few weeks, though, when the weather turns, those bright, light spaces will be no longer available. The company cannot afford to heat the building – which is already a good few degrees chillier than the outside temperature.
The remaining company will have to retreat to the lowest two subterranean floors of the near-deserted 11-storey building. Here, Duhinov plans to convert a zone currently used as a car park and space for bins into a small-scale performance area.
Already the Khnatob building – normally a hive of activity with costume and scenery workshops working flat out, as well as artists in rehearsal – seems a touch haunted, with its confounding labyrinth of deserted corridors, echoing hallways, boarded-up or cracked windows and dimly lit, Escher-like staircases.
If there are blackouts again in the coming months, as there were frequently last winter after the Russians targeted energy infrastructure, the few habitable spaces will need to be heated by generators.
Duhinov said he had received little support from peers in the performing arts in western Europe. “Any solidarity, any support would be welcome. Inviting our company to perform is the simplest way to help us, so that our company has the opportunity to earn some money. But we also need equipment for heating in the winter. And just to maintain this enormous building costs a fortune.”
“We have to be very creative to survive,” he added. “But we are holding on.”
