Why Ukrainian artists keep taking the stage: “It’s my own form of resistance”

KYIV - I went to the opera on Sunday — one of the best ways to get your mind off the doom of near-constant missile attacks under gloomy November skies, Ukrainians tell me.

But culture here isn’t just about entertainment. And Ukrainian artists do much more than perform.

Instead, it’s about clinging to the language, the music, the dance, the poetry.

In sum, the things that make Ukraine Ukrainian — in the face of a genocidal Vladimir Putin who wants nothing more than to extinguish the real difference between Moscow and Kyiv.

“Before the war, I danced because it made me happy,” one dancer told me. “Now, I do it because what else can I do?”

“It’s my own form of resistance.”

It’s a common theme I’ve seen across my many years reporting from Ukraine. As Putin continues his clear campaign to erase Ukrainian identity, artists here find new reason to perform.

It’s about preserving their heritage. It’s about maintaining Ukrainian dignity. And it’s about helping their community cope with the horrors of war.

“We are Ukrainian,” Kyiv resident Kateryna Raputa told me. “This is our home. We will not leave it, and it cannot leave us.”

There’s another benefit, too: Theater-goers say the arts help distract them from the stress of living in a war zone.

On Sunday, we were lucky enough to only have “yellow” air raid alert — which aren’t taken as seriously as the risk of red alerts allowing businesses to proceed as normal despite a drone or two flying in the region.

There was a time here when you could barely get through a performance due to air raid alerts and the responsibility the theater had to get the audience to shelter.

It hurt ticket sales and disrupted the very magic of distraction people had gone to the theater to enjoy.

The transition to the color-coded alert system allows performances like the one I saw on Sunday to continue — unless there’s a red alert.

I wasn’t totally sure of the finer plot points of the opera I saw on Sunday (Ukrainians trying to translate Italian to English for me during intermission was quite an experience!) but I can tell you I was moved to near-tears by the beauty alone.

Reading about the opera after the fact — “La Traviata” — it’s such a reminder of what is most important in life: love. And nowhere is that concept made more clear than in a country at war.

And just like one of her first arias, “Sempre libera” — or, “Always Free” — the Ukrainians here value so deeply their freedom from Russian oppression. A freedom that only true democracy can bring, and one that was hard-fought with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

“Free and aimless I frolic

From joy to joy,

Flowing along the surface

of life’s path as I please.

As the day is born,

Or as the day dies,

Happily I turn to the new delights

That make my spirit soar.”

On Sunday, in a country at war, we got to stay in our seats and hear Violetta sing about being free.