Ukrainian mothers’ fight to free children from Russians depicted in new opera

By Daniel Flynn

KYIV, June 7 (Reuters) – A Ukrainian composer’s opera, premiering in Kiev this week, tells the story of two mothers and a grandmother who travel 3,000 miles (4,800 km) to occupied Crimea, risking their lives to rescue children kidnapped by Russian forces.

“Mothers of Kherson,” a co-commission of the New York Metropolitan Opera, is based on the true stories of women who left the city to bring their children home after the liberation of southern Ukraine in November 2022.

They traveled 750 miles of the front line through Poland, Belarus and Russia to reach the camp in Crimea where their children were held.

Ukraine says it has confirmed that nearly 20,000 children were abducted by Russia during the four-year war. In March, a UN commission concluded that the deportation and enforced disappearance of Ukrainian children by Russia was a crime against humanity.

The Kremlin denies this and says it is evacuating Ukrainian children for their own safety.

So far, only 1,343 children have been returned home, according to Save Ukraine, an aid organization that helped organize rescue efforts.

Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb said he hoped bearing witness to Russia’s war crimes through art would help raise awareness of these crimes and leave a lasting record.

“It’s an incredibly emotional story where these mothers will sacrifice anything, including their lives, if necessary, to get their children back,” Gelb, 73, said. He said setting his stories to music in the opera increased his intensity.

“It has the ability to do something that watching the news or reading the newspaper probably cannot do, which is to lift our spirits,” he said.

Yulia Radzevilova, who attended the premiere at Kiev’s 19th-century national opera house, was one of the mothers who inspired the work of Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets. She was one of the lucky ones and three years ago returned home with her son Maxim, now 16 years old.

“The journey was very difficult and long,” the 39-year-old actor said. When she saw her story on stage, she burst into tears and said: “I’m back to those times and feelings. It sounds so beautiful.”

A teacher had organized what was presented as a two-week trip to Crimea in October 2022 for the children to “rest” after the war, but Maxim was kept there for four months. When Yulia asked for her to be sent home, she was told to come and get her.

Maxim, who was 12 at the time, said the camp felt like a “prison”, where children were forbidden from speaking Ukrainian, were subjected to corporal punishment and had to exercise to the Russian national anthem every morning.

She recalled calling her mother in tears on Telegram: “I wanted to go home. When I saw my mother, I was very happy.”

‘MOMENT OF HEALING’

Thursday’s performance, held on Ukraine’s day of remembrance for children killed in conflict, showed excerpts from the work still being completed. It will have a full run at the Polish National Opera in October, before its premiere at the Met in April 2028.

Mykola Kuleba, founder of Save Ukraine, said she was surprised when Gelb wrote to her after the rescues in 2023. They met in Washington to discuss the project.

“It’s an opera about kidnapped children; I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Kuleba said. He said listening to “magic music” at the gala was a “moment of healing” at a time when Kiev was subject to regular air raids.

Save Ukraine still finds new cases of abducted children whose parents are often killed, arrested or missing. Kuleba said the rescued children were forbidden from contact with Ukrainian culture and were taught that the West was their enemy.

“We will not stop. We will continue our rescue missions,” he said.

Keri-Lynn Wilson, who performed the premiere, founded the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra to showcase Ukraine’s artistic talent internationally after the Russian invasion. A Canadian of Ukrainian descent, he said the opera would raise awareness of Ukraine’s suffering and resilience.

“Ukrainian culture and music is vital and alive, and you can’t silence it,” said Wilson, who is married to Gelb.

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Additional reporting by Anna Voitenko, Alina Smutko and Yurii Kovalenko; Editing by William Maclean)