The non-commercial association VladOpera e.V. based in Stuttgart (Germany) is
committed to international understanding, cultural exchange and the development of
the civil society.

The association has over 10 years of experience in implementing international cultural
projects in cooperation with different partners in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space,
especially in Ukraine and Russia. The activity of the association is focused on
cultural projects, which are also conceived as a mean of international understanding.

Since 2014, the association has been focused on cooperation with Ukraine in order to
contribute to the reconciliation and understanding in Europe:

Project ¿everything´s different? (2015)
A theater project about people, war and society in Ukraine
16 theatrical groups from Ukraine, Poland and Belarus were invited to over 30
performances and discussions in Ivano-Frankvsk, Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv and
Severodonetsk.

Project "Debates on Europe" (2015/2016)
VladOpera e.V. was a partner in a series of international conferences in Estonia,
Belarus, Russia and Ukraine on the issues of European neighborhood.

Project "Stories from Severo" (2016)
A documentary performance produced in Severodonetsk with partners from Kyiv and the
Luhansk region. The real everyday life, the wishes and hopes of people in the war
zone were discussed and staged with actors, some of whom themselves fled the
occupied territories. The piece has been shown in different cities, including
Kyiv.

Project "Music Overcomes Walls" (2017-2018)
An international opera and music project in Severodonetsk. In the summer of 2018, after
six weeks of joint rehearsals, a new production of the Mozart opera "Don Giovanni" was
shown to the people of Luhansk region.

Project "Music and Dialogue" (2019)
»Listening for a Better Understanding«
An international orchestra comprising 45 musicians and 20 choir singers rehearses together in Severodonetsk. The artists leave the comfortable frame of the stage and travel to 12
cities in the Luhansk region to play music and to get to know people and realities
through dialogue.

The association VladOpera eV and its projects has been financially supported
by the German Foreign Office, the Goethe Institute, the Deutsche Bank Foundation, the
Prokhorov Foundation, the Daimler Benz AG, the State of Baden-Württemberg, the
Robert Bosch Stiftung, Porsche AG, USAID, UNDP and many local and regional partners.

website:
www.vladopera.org
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/vladopera

In the context of previous projects implemented by VladOpera e.V. (Germany) in Severodonetsk (Luhansk region, Ukraine), participants, partners and spectators formed an initiative group and took most of the responsibility for the existence, development and prospects of the project. Their initiative, energy and knowledge create various activities within the project, determine its goals and objectives.

To ensure the continuity of the project, these people created an initiative group "Opera and Dialog". In partnership with the association VladOpera e.V. (Germany) they bring to life and fill the project with meaning. the project aims to improve mutual understanding between people and plans to attract even more activists from different parts of the Luhansk region, other countries and regions of Ukraine.

Members of the initiative group:

Vitaly Alekseenok (Belarus/Germany, Weimar)
conductor
conductor of the opera "Don Giovanni", 2018
musical director of the project "Music and Dialogue", 2019

Igor Bilyts (Ukraine, Kiev)
stage director, actor, playwright
dramaturg of the opera "Don Giovanni", 2018

Lesya Dermenzhi (Lviv, Ukraine)
musician
participant of the project "Music and Dialogue" 2019

Ludmila Dolgonovskaya (Ukraine, Kiev)
assistant consultant of the people's deputy of Ukraine
curator of the project "Music Overcomes Walls", 2018

Oleksii Dorychevskyi (Ukraine, Kiev)
stage director, actor, playwright
playwright of the project "Tales of the North", 2016
dramaturg of the opera "Don Giovanni", 2018

Anna Kazakova (Belarus, Minsk)
cultural project manager
Project Manager of the project "Music Overcomes Walls", 2018
Project Manager of the project "Music and Dialogue", 2019

Tetyana Plis (Ukraine, Severodonetsk)
Dramaturg at the Luhansk Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater
Actress of the project "Tales of the North", 2016
curator of the project "Music Overcomes Walls", 2018
curator of the project "Music and Dialogue", 2019

Evgeny Rakhmanin (Ukraine, Kiev)
vocalist
soloist of the opera "Don Giovanni", 2018

Olga Ursol (Ukraine, Severodonetsk)
cultural manager
curator of the project "Music and Dialogue", 2019

Dr. h. c. Peter Schwarz — Chairman of the German non-profit organisation VladOpera e.V., one of initiators and head of the project "Music and Dialogue".

Grew up in Western Germany. After the fall of the Iron Curtain he travelled to former „Eastern Bloc" and the Soviet Union to explore another part of the world. He was an exchange student for one year in Krasnoyarsk (Sibiria) and worked two years within a program of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Vladivostok (Russian Far East). Since 2003 he is realizing cultural projects. In 2009, he was appointed chairman of VladOpera e.V.

Peter Schwarz came first to Luhansk Region and Severodonetsk in spring 2015. He understood that it was very important to work in this region to understand better what is going on in East Ukraine. After this first visit VladOpera e.V. together with varying partners realized several theater and musical projects: Theater Festival everything´s different in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Severodonetsk in 2015, a documentary theater production Bajki Severa in Severodonetsk in 2016, and a Don Giovanni-concert in Severodonetsk in 2017.

Peter is initiator and head of the international opera project in the Luhansk region "Music Overcomes Walls" (»Don Giovanni«), implemented in Severodonetsk in the summer of 2018. "Music and Dialogue" is a continuation of the project "Music Overcomes Walls".

In 2012, graduated from Minsk State Linguistics University (cross-cultural communications department).

In 2011-2013, worked as an international projects coordinator at International Theater Festival TEART and Minsk International Film Festival LISTAPAD.

In 2013-2016, worked as a project manager at the Theater and Concert Agency KULTPROSVET (Minsk). In December 2015, she was a coordinator of the project "Debates on Europe" in Minsk. In 2013-2016, worked

Since 2016, she works as a project manager at the Social Theater Lab in Minsk and PR manager at European College of Liberal Arts in Belarus.

In 2018, worked as a project manager of the international opera project in the Luhansk region "Music Overcomes Walls" (»Don Giovanni«), implemented in Severodonetsk in the summer of 2018. "Music and Dialogue" is a continuation of the project "Music Overcomes Walls".

Vitali Alekseenok, since season 2017/18 became a new chief conductor of the Abaco Orchestra of Munich University, and has conducted such orchestras as Lucerne Festival Strings, Jena Philharmonic, INSO-Lviv Symphony Orchestra, Gotha Philharmonic, Lviv Philharmonic, Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra and others.

He was founder of Gustav Mahler concert series in Thuringia wherein he performed his "The Song of the Earth" in Weimar and Erfurt. He also conducted Stravinsky's "The soldier's tale" in St. Petersburg with members of St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Mariinsky Orchestra and his own compositions with members of "I, culture orchestra" in Gdansk, Poland.

Since season 2016/18 he closely cooperates with Oksana Lyniv, with whom he worked as a conductor and musical assistant in the Bavarian State Opera, Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Graz Opera, with the "New Philharmony Munich" and Bavarian Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Belarus Vitali Alekseenok continued his musical studies in the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory with Prof. Alexander Alekseev and in Weimar High School of Music with Prof. Nicolas Pasquet. He took part in master classes with Bernard Haitink, Peter Stark, Bruno Weil and others.

Marina Yavorskaya, Honored Artist of Ukraine, director of the regional communal institution Serhii Prokofiev Severodonetsk College of Culture and Art, which is the center of academic musical culture, aesthetic education of young people and residents of the region.

Marina Yavorskaya, a former graduate of this educational institution, considers her main goal to be the further development of the college, the preservation of traditions that had been forming for 50 years; strengthening the status of an educational institution that is professionally oriented towards the upbringing of a spiritually developed person.

Marina is the head of the "Ukrainian Donbass" project implemented in the college (2016) and, within the framework of the Program "Consider the Land of Time", the project "Art without Borders" (2018), a program implemented jointly with the Association "Euroregion Karpaty-Ukraine". The goal of these projects is to form an open cultural and educational space for students from different regions of Ukraine to communicate, exchange experience between musicians of educational institutions of culture and arts of the east and west of the country.

In the framework of the program "Training. Exchanges. Residences. Debuts", implemented with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, Marina Yavorskaya is the head of the project "Choir-Fest "East CAMERTON" – the festival of choral music, which will be held in Severodonetsk in the autumn of 2019 with the participation of student choirs from three regions of Ukraine: Luhansk region, Galicia and Bukovina.

Graduated from the National Music Academy named after P.I.Tchaikovsky (class of an outstanding opera singer, People's Artist of Ukraine, Professor E. V. Kolesnik). Laureate of international competitions, including the 1st International Eva Marton Singing Competition (Budapest, Hungary), the 6th AB Solovyanenko International Competition (Donetsk, Ukraine), 1st International Virgilijus Noreika Competition for Singers (Vilnius, Lithuania), 9th GRANDI VOCI opera singers competiton (Salzburg, Austria).

From 2016, as an invited soloist she actively participates in the productions of the Hungarian National Opera (the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute by Mozart, Violetta Valeri from The Traviata by Verdi, Maria Sierva from Love and Other Demons by Eötvös) in Budapest, as well as the Lviv National Opera (Queen of the Night), Open Opera Ukraine (Belinda), Cagliari Opera House in Italy (Donna Anna), etc.

In 2017, she performed the soprano solo in "Requiem" Ligeti with great success along with the Belgian national orchestra and the Hungarian National Choir in Brussels.

In 2018, she performed the role of Zerlina from "Don Juan" by Mozart under the direction of Oksana Linevo at the Opera Festival in Tulchin.

In 2018, she performed the role of the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute by Mozart, staged by the famous director Graham Vick at the Macerata Opera Festival (Italy), as well as Queen Sofia Palace of Arts in Valencia (Spain).