Operetta

Operetta. Early Ukrainian operettas include Mykhailo Verbytsky's Pidhiriany (The Foothill Dwellers, 1864) and Mykola Lysenko's Chornomortsi (The Black Sea Cossacks, 1872). In the 20th century they were followed by Kyrylo Stetsenko's Svatannia na Honcharivtsi (Matchmaking at Honcharivka, 1909), Yaroslav Y. Lopatynsky's Enei na mandrivtsi (Aeneas in His Wanderings, 1911), and Yaroslav Barnych's Hutsulka Ksenia (Ksenia the Hutsul Girl). The Stalinist crackdown which began in the 1930s stifled the development of Ukrainian culture, including opera and operetta. Restrictions and the binding conformity to socialist realism eased only after Joseph Stalin's death. Since then Ukrainian operettas have been written by Oleksander Bilash, Hryhorii Finarovsky, Vadym Homoliaka, Anatol Kos-Anatolsky, V. Lukashov, Oleksii Riabov, Oskar Sandler, and Yakiv Tsehliar. In Ukraine the leading operetta theaters are the Kyiv Operetta Theater and the Odesa Musical Comedy Theater.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]