A bust of the legendary Ukrainian operatic singer Solomia Krushelnytska has been unveiled at the Great Theater of National Polish Opera. The work, executed with the assistance of Arsenii Yatseniuk’s Open Ukraine foundation, is now an exhibit at the gallery of the Warsaw opera house’s outstanding artists. The author of the sculptural composition is the artist Vasyl Yarych. The bust itself is made of bronze, and the pedestal and the column are made of granite. The composition is more than two meters high. It took more than 115,000 hryvnias to carry out the project. “This is the first bust of Solomia Krushelnytska in Poland,” says Orest Skopa, the composition’s architect. The artistic image that inspired the creators was Krushelnyska in the role of the Countess in the homonymous opera by Stanislaw Moniuszko. It will be recalled that Krushelnytska’s “Warsaw period” spanned for four years. Her performance on the operatic stage further promoted the success of Moniuszko’s opera. Presumably, Krushelnytska was the best performer of the part of Galka in the opera of the same name, for which Poles often refer to her as “Polish opera singer.”
“It is for about a hundred years that Solomia Krushelnytska has been considered one of the leading figures in the history of Polish operatic art. She is now returning to Warsaw. The bust will stand next to the so-called Redoubt Halls of the Great Theater, the part that remained intact when Warsaw was ruined during World War Two. So these premises still remember the proud gait of our prima donna,” says Rostyslaw Kramar, a Warsaw University lecturer and the initiator of this event. The star attraction of this ceremonial soiree was the appearance of the sisters Natalia and Halyna Datsko. The two Lviv opera singers sang arias from the repertoire of Solomia Krushelnytska.
