On a Stage 5,000 Miles Away, He Sings for His Family in Ukraine

Sometimes lately, when he hasn’t been rehearsing Verdi or Tchaikovsky at the Metropolitan Opera, or practicing Italian with a diction coach on Zoom, the bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi takes out his phone and sends a one-word text message: “Mama.”

The message is meant for Buialskyi’s mother, who is more than 5,000 miles away in his hometown, Berdyansk, a small port city in Ukraine that has been under siege since the Russian invasion began last month. His mother has been unable to flee because she is caring for his grandmother, who is 88 and has difficulty walking. Anxious about his mother’s safety, Buialskyi sends her messages around the clock, awaiting the replies that confirm she remains safe and reachable.

“It’s a huge nightmare,” said Buialskyi, 24, who is enrolled in the Met’s prestigious young artists program. “You wake up each day hoping it’s not real, but it’s still happening.”

Since the start of the invasion, Buialskyi has become a symbol at the Met of his country’s struggles. On Monday, when the Met hosts a concert in support of Ukraine, he will be featured in a rendition of its national anthem. He played a similar role last month, at the outset of the invasion, when the chorus and orchestra performed the anthem before a performance of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.” Buialskyi — who was making his debut with the company in a small role that evening — stood center stage, his hand over his heart. Ukrainian news outlets later aired clips of the performance.

“It was incredibly moving, because you could see how much it meant to him,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “The fact that it was such an emotional experience for him made it even more emotional for me and the other members of the company.”

Gelb said he hoped the performance of the anthem on Monday would “show the world and our audiences that we are in solidarity with Ukraine.”

Buialskyi said he was uneasy about the attention. But he said he wants to use his platform to help his friends and family back home.

“I hope it inspires people not to give up,” he said. “Even though I’m far away, I want to be doing what I can.”

Buialskyi grew up in eastern Ukraine, along the Sea of Azov, in a city known for its beaches and its port, a hub for coal and grain exports. The only child of an accountant and a driver, he showed an early interest in singing. As a two-year-old, he mimicked jingles on television and sang Ukrainian folk songs.

His mother initially had visions of sending him to a college specializing in automotive studies, worried about the career prospects for an artist. But she soon recognized his gift, and at 17 he began conservatory studies, practicing standards of the repertoire like “Largo al factotum,” from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” His idol was Muslim Magomayev, a pop and classical singer from Azerbaijan.

He came to the Met in 2020 as part of its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. The program’s participants take up tiny parts in Met productions, and this season Buialskyi is playing the role of a Flemish deputy in “Don Carlos” and a captain in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.”

One evening last month, on his way back to his apartment in Washington Heights after finishing up meetings at the Met, he got a call from his mother, who said she was hearing explosions. He checked news sites and soon realized that Moscow had begun invading Ukraine. Berdyansk is near the Russian border and was one of the first cities to be seized by Russian forces. Some citizens tried to resist the invasion by singing the Ukrainian national anthem, according to news reports.

“I was just so scared,” Buialskyi said. “People who are not there right now still can’t believe that war is actually happening in our day and age.”

His Met colleagues have rallied behind him, asking for updates on his family and donating to a crowdfunding effort he started to support Ukrainian families and soldiers. Russian artists at the Met have also reached out, he said, checking on his family’s safety.

Melissa Wegner, the executive director of the Lindemann program, said she had been impressed with Buialskyi’s resolve in the face of trying circumstances.

“It really takes my breath away,” she said. “All of us in the program are really just kind of staggered by what he’s going through right now.”

Inside his dressing room before a performance of “Don Carlos” last week, Buialskyi scrolled through Ukrainian social media accounts on his phone, looking at images of burning tanks near his hometown. Another young artist in the Lindemann program, Samson Setu, a New Zealand-born Samoan baritone, smiled at him and said, “You’re a hero, 100 percent.”

In recent days, Buialskyi has had more trouble reaching his family. When his mother went silent for a two-day stretch, he grew fearful and began to pray. His father lives about two hours from Berdyansk, in Melitopol, which has also fallen under Russian control.

Buialskyi said that he was optimistic that Ukraine would prevail. Lately, he has been thinking about his childhood, and the days when he played soccer with friends by the sea.

“What I miss most,” he said, “are the peaceful times.”

He said he is trying to focus on preparing for his big moment during “A Concert for Ukraine” at the Met on Monday. He has been coaching his colleagues in Ukrainian diction and practicing a few lines in the anthem that he will sing for the first time as a solo:

Our enemies shall vanish

Like dew in the sun.

We too shall rule,

In our beloved country.

Anna Tsybko contributed reporting.