The premiere presentation of the musical and theatrical extravaganza “When the Fern Blooms” by composer Yevhen Stankovych, performed by the Lviv National Opera, took place at Zhovkva Castle. The production was shown on Sunday, 23 August, and it was this performance that launched the annual international open-air theatre arts festival in Zhovkva.
The event was dedicated to the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. Among the guests was the head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration and regional council deputy Maksym Kozytskyi.
The opera “When the Fern Blooms” was created in the 1970s, but the Soviet authorities banned its staging, so for decades the work remained inaccessible to the wider public. The director of the current production is People’s Artist of Ukraine Vasyl Vovkun, a native of the village of Matsoshyn.
“The foundations of the annual international open-air theatre arts festival have been laid! This will be a festival of European calibre, which will bring theatres and artists from all over Ukraine and other countries to Lviv region, will present Ukrainian art to the world, and world art to the Ukrainian audience. I thank the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the project will receive co-financing under the largest state programme to support the creation of contemporary Ukrainian cultural products – ‘Tysiachovesna'”
The event was organised with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine in partnership with Zhovkva City Council and the Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery.