Dmytro Bortniansky’s “Creonte” was heard once again in Ukraine!
It was a truly special evening — an encounter with music created almost 250 years ago within the European cultural landscape, long believed to have been lost, and now returning to Ukrainian and international musical heritage
As part of the project “Creonte XVIII/XXI: Fate, Choice or the Choice of Fate?”, Open Opera Ukraine presented a concert performance of “Creonte” by Ukrainian composer Dmytro Bortniansky, written in Italy in 1776.
According to available information, “Creonte” premiered at the prestigious Teatro San Benedetto in Venice. Its score was subsequently considered lost for centuries, until Ukrainian musicologist Olha Shumilina rediscovered the manuscript at the Biblioteca da Ajuda in Portugal in 2023.
To bring the work back to life, Open Opera Ukraine undertook a comprehensive scholarly reconstruction of the opera. Following the principles of historically informed performance, the team worked with the original source, Bortniansky’s individual compositional style and the performance practices of the final quarter of the 18th century. The project also includes the publication of the score and a recording of the opera.
Our sincere thanks go to the entire team, artists, musicians, technical specialists and partners who helped bring this music back to life. And, of course, to the audience who shared this remarkable evening with the performers!
We are especially pleased that Austria contributed to the implementation of this ambitious initiative. The project was realised with the partnership support of the Austrian Embassy in Ukraine and the Austrian Cooperation Office in Lviv. Supporting initiatives that rediscover lesser-known and previously lost chapters of Ukrainian cultural heritage and bring them into a broader European context is particularly important to us.
The project “Creonte XVIII/XXI: Fate, Choice or the Choice of Fate?” was developed with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation within the “Culture During the War” programme and implemented by Open Opera Ukraine in cooperation with the National House of Music and the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, with the partnership support of the Italian Cultural Institute, the Embassy of Italy in Ukraine, UNESCO, the Austrian Embassy in Ukraine and the Austrian Cooperation Office in Lviv.
Photo: @valeria_la254
