“The first in a year and a half”: the first concert with in-person audience presence took place at the Donetsk Philharmonic

“We conduct everything with caution”

The successes of the Russian army in the Avdeevsky and Maryinsky directions should be assessed by military experts. But the fact that the “front line” has moved away from the capital of the DPR is a fact that is reflected in everyday life. For several years, MK wrote articles about the culture of Donetsk in approximately the same tone: “closed”, “activities are temporarily suspended due to the difficult situation”, “carried out in a remote format” – they even found out what Muzdrama artists are doing so as not to “ lose shape.” But on December 15, an event occurred to which the hackneyed and well-worn word “long-awaited” does not apply.

On December 15, 2023, the Donetsk Philharmonic gave its first “concert with in-person audience presence in more than a year and a half.” The concert was a success, this information was confirmed to us in Donetsk.

“We carry out everything with caution,” says Alexander Paretsky, general director of the Philharmonic, and this is the case when Donetsk residents do not want unnecessary fuss and publicity in the media. The less attention the better. Moreover, for now we are talking only about small halls with an audience of 50 and 72 people.

What will people hear who have spent so long in forced “cultural isolation”? I remember that Osip Mandelstam came up with the formula of “longing for world culture” – the Philharmonic’s poster reflects nothing more than this longing. Masterpieces of world music: Vivaldi, Mozart, Brahms, Piazzolla, an evening dedicated to Sergei Rachmaninoff, a program about the love story of Vysotsky and Marina Vladi…

Boris Yeltsin, resigning, said: “You deserve happiness and peace of mind.” Donetsk residents also fully deserve silence in the evening, the right to walk along Pushkin Boulevard without thinking about cluster shells, the right to order an “import-substituted” burger with cola on Lenin Square – and go to a classical music concert. So far they have received only a small share of all this – but the first swallow of the return of peace to Donbass made a nest under the roof of the Donetsk Philharmonic in December. This is such a squiggle.