Independent Opera Company is going to do Ukrainian opera in June! It is going to be "Cossack Beyond the Danube" by Hulak-Artemovsky. This is a wonderful comic opera with spoken dialogues. It has great music, some of it based on Ukrainian folk tunes. It's fun and lighthearted, and yet it talks about such important topic as independence of Ukraine, which is so incredibly relevant these days! Performance will take place on June 24th and 25th at River of the Valley, beautiful chu

Why are we still so attracted to old fairy tales? The simple answer is: they are still amusing and fun. For some of us, they take us back to our childhood. And they still tell relevant stories and help us to connect with essential archetypes. Also, sometimes the animals in these stories are more advanced and smarter than humans! (I personally like this, as I am a great animal lover). If we look at Puss in Boots, for example, we notice that Puss (Cat) is so much smarter and al

Independent Opera Company is really saddened and shocked by the horrible events happening in Europe with Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine. While these events are universally terrible, we are particularly upset and take the matter personally as IOC Founding Artistic Director Galina Barskaya is originally from Kiev, Ukraine and still has family and friends there. We would like to issue the following statement to clarify our position. We resolutely condemn Russia's unprovoked