History

Gorgolewski submitted his competition entry under a false name from Leipzig — a strategic move in the politically charged atmosphere of Habsburg Galicia — and won the commission for what was then called the Grand Theatre of Lemberg (the German name for Lviv under Austrian rule). The building solved a formidable engineering problem: the site lay over the channelled Poltva River, making conventional foundations impossible. Gorgolewski instead employed a reinforced concrete base — the first time this technique had been used for a major European theatre, anticipating by years what became standard 20th-century practice. The gala opening on 4 October 1900 drew writer Henryk Sienkiewicz and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

Under Soviet rule from 1939, the theatre was renamed multiple times: the Ivan Franko Lviv State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet from 1956. In April 1990, the first public performance of Ukraine’s national anthem since Soviet suppression took place on its stage — a moment of cultural defiance that preceded Ukrainian independence by a year. The centenary in 2000 prompted the renaming in honour of Solomiya Krushelnytska, the soprano born near Lviv in 1872 who became one of the great operatic voices of the early twentieth century.

Today the theatre is the flagship institution of Ukrainian lyric art and continues to perform a full season of opera and ballet productions, drawing international productions and soloists alongside its resident companies.