The Auditorium Theatre was packed Saturday night for the first of two performances by Ukraine’s Kyiv City Ballet. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine still raging, gold and blue Ukrainian flags hung in the lobby and the colonnade leading to the Auditorium.
But inside the theater itself, the atmosphere paid the highest compliment possible to a visiting ensemble. It was the first night of the Auditorium’s 2022-23 season, and the audience included devoted Auditorium and ballet fans as well as fervent Ukrainian Americans. Since opening in 1889, the Auditorium has welcomed the world’s finest artists, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra before it moved to the newly built Orchestra Hall in 1904.Saturday’s program, repeated Sunday afternoon, was not a sentimental, rally-round-the-flag salute to beleaguered dancers stranded in Paris since war broke out Feb. 24 in their homeland. It was an evening showcasing a young ballet troupe, founded in 2012, that deserves attention. Chicago is its fourth stop on a U.S. tour running through late October.
