Bring These Children Home: Barbara Wysocka Talks About ‘Mothers of Kherson’

barbara-wysocka-AW-portretMS211122_035.jpg, default, Barbara Wysocka, photo: Mateusz Skwarczek / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

In the opera ‘Mothers of Kherson’, music becomes the voice of mothers heroically fighting to get back their stolen children. We talk to the play’s director, Barbara Wysocka, about art in the shadow of the ongoing war and the ethical dilemmas of working with trauma.

The Warsaw premiere of Mothers of Kherson is one of the most anticipated events of the upcoming opera season. The production, with music by Maxim Kolomiiets and a libretto by George Brant, tackles the tragedy of Ukrainian children being abducted by Russian authorities. This incredibly important, yet delicate subject demands a great deal of responsibility from the creators, as well as careful consideration of its form.

Barbara Wysocka, director of the production, talked to us about whether opera can serve as a tool for intervention in times of armed conflict, how such an inhumane story is filtered through her own experience of motherhood, and why the production chose not to depict either the victims or the perpetrators of violence on stage.

Anastasia Kanarska, Filip Lech: When you were preparing for the new production of ‘La Bohème’ at the Teatr Wielki – National Opera in Warsaw, you said in an interview it was about the loss of the world as we knew it. At the time, the context was the pandemic. Since then, we have regularly felt a sense of loss regarding the world we knew.

Barbara Wysocka: Absolutely. We are living through a very tense period in history.

AK | FL: In that same conversation, you also said that staging an opera today is an extravagance.

BW: For years, I’ve been grappling with the question of whether operas should be staged at a time when armed conflicts are raging all around us. How is art supposed to find its place in such a reality? How might it comment on this, intervene or counteract it? Why should we spend money on producing plays and operas rather than on campaigns to save the world? Can art itself be such a campaign? These are crucial questions. Perhaps at this point it would be better to pursue a completely different profession?

AK | FL: ‘Mothers of Kherson’ is raising awareness of the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russian authorities. How did work on the production begin: with the libretto, the music, or the story itself?

BW: The story, of course. This piece – the libretto, as well as the music – is in service of a real situation. The topic is so much more important than the set design: the mass abductions of Ukrainian children and the mothers’ heroic struggle to get them back. We want to tell this story and to focus on these protagonists. Both the set design and the direction are intended to create a space for the story and the music.

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Scene from 'Mothers of Kherson', directed by Barbara Wysocka, 2026, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński / Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa

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AK | FL: Have you had the opportunity to meet any of the women whose stories inspired the opera?

BW: Personally, I haven’t, but I know that they were at the concert premiering the opera’s music in Kyiv in June 2026. I hope they come to Warsaw. There is such a huge responsibility on us, on the whole team. For George Brant, the librettist, for Maxim Kolomiiets, the composer, and for the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, for the Teatr Wielki – National Opera, and for the Met, to remain as close to the truth as possible, without exploiting someone’s tragedy. This is extremely difficult in theatre. It’s one thing to stage an ancient tragedy, but quite another to portray the suffering of a person who may well be sitting in the audience that very day.

AK | FL: The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova – who holds the post of ‘Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights’ in Russia – in connection with the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. How do you portray real-life figures from Russia in the opera?

BW: Maria Lvova-Belova appears on stage as one of the characters, played by soloist Katarzyna Wietrzny. This was a dilemma for me: to show a real photograph of Lvova-Belova or not. Should I show the face of an actual war criminal from the stage of Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki? Should I emphasise that what we are showing is actually taking place? We got rid of the portrait. In the end, we decided to portray her on stage surrounded by a propaganda circus, which does more harm than good to the world and to children. I hope we’ve managed to convey her unimaginable hypocrisy and cruelty.

AK | FL: Belarusian and Russian border guards also make an appearance.

BW: These mothers experience horrifying cruelty on their journeys: a border check at the Belarusian border, then a check at the airport, and a Russian one on the final stretch of the journey. On stage, we only take note of this violence; the reality was, and remains, far worse.

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Scene from 'Mothers of Kherson', directed by Barbara Wysocka, 2026, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński / Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa

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AK | FL: We spoke to Maxim Kolomiiets and he mentioned that you were approaching this story as if it were your own and processing it not only as a director, but above all as a mother. Did you have to consciously separate your emotions from your decisions as a director?

BW: Yes, I do filter the story through myself, through my own feelings and my own experiences as a mother. That’s why it’s so difficult. What is happening to these abducted children goes beyond my conception of suffering. A foreign state abducts a child, forces them to take on the citizenship of an enemy nation, and indoctrinates them. This is an inconceivable horror, an unimaginable crime. In my opinion, it’s impossible to convey this through images alone; music speaks volumes here.

AK | FL: How has work on ‘Mothers’ affected you? Spending months reading reports, listening to recordings and testimony. Does the theatre have mechanisms in place to protect artists from secondary trauma? Was a psychologist present during rehearsals?

BW: Unfortunately not. Theatre – and I’m talking about theatre in general – doesn’t have built-in mechanisms to protect from trauma. On any level. This applies not only to the stories we tell and the tragedies we are asked to portray on stage. It also applies to the working conditions themselves, the mental strain, the time pressure and the lack of a sense of security for the artists.

AK | FL: As a director, what did you find most difficult about bringing the libretto to the stage?

BW: Combining all of the spaces described in the libretto. George Brant wrote the first act so that it takes place in many different locations. We bring all this together into a single oppressive space: an underground train station. Whilst there is no underground station in Kherson, we are broadening the picture to encompass the experience of the entire invasion, and the people who are trying to hide. We drew inspiration from images of stations in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

The second act takes place during a journey which, in a sense, represents a kind of liberation. The mothers leave Kherson and travel many kilometres over several weeks to reach their children, rescue them and bring them home. We perform this on an almost empty stage, with just a bus in the centre. It’s a real means of transportation, but also something like Odysseus’ ship, a magical vehicle that enables them to reach their destination.

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Scene from 'Mothers of Kherson', directed by Barbara Wysocka, 2026, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński / Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa

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How do we portray this? How do we put women who are supposed to sing onto a bus? How do we emphasise that this bus is significant? After all, we’re not going to put them on stage and pretend they’re actually travelling. So, the set design is very minimalistic, very understated. I hope that, despite this, we’ll manage to create images that are austere, yet deeply emotional.

AK | FL: Are there any visual elements or staging choices that you deliberately chose not to include, even though they might have enhanced the emotional impact of the performance?

BW: Yes, images from Maria Lvova-Belova’s conference. And all the images of human suffering, the absence of any portraits of the abducted children – this could have a negative impact on the process of recovering them.

AK | FL: To what extent does the play draw on the specific topography of a city that has endured occupation, liberation (in November 2022), the disaster following the blowing-up of the dam at Nova Kakhovka, and shelling from the opposite bank of the Dnieper? Is Kherson a place here, or more of a symbol?

BW: Kherson is a symbol. In context, we try to expand the narrative to include images from across Ukraine during the invasion.

AK | FL: Does working with a living composer change things?

BW: So much. The music kept changing right up until the final rehearsals – it was fascinating to watch that process unfold. The music has many layers, themes and immense power. There were moments when I wondered how to handle certain things – how, for example, to link scenes together? How to shift suddenly from a camp in Crimea to the Polish-Belarusian border? At such times, I could ask the composer to take this into account in the revisions and add, for example, 30 seconds of music needed to mark the change of setting.

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AK | FL: The opera is written in English, although it is about Ukrainian women who speak Ukrainian, and often Russian in that area. Does this use of multiple languages come across anywhere in the production? Is English here the language of ‘the world that watches’?

BW: I think the creators wanted the story to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible. I wish that the opera was being performed in Ukrainian.

AK | FL: Did you attend the premiere of the concert version of the piece in Kyiv?

BW: Unfortunately not. But, I know it was an incredible experience. In fact, one might wonder whether Mothers of Kherson could just exist without a stage production – everything of significance takes place within the musical space. Maxim Kolomiiets said: ‘It would have been better if this opera had never had to be written.’ We would be delighted if this subject did not exist and if we could continue to stage the traditional repertoire. To focus on how and why Rigoletto came about, and on the fact that the king was horrible.

AK | FL: The king still is horrible.

BW: That’s true. We would really like these types of stories to stay in the past. To tell the story of evil as a reminder and a warning, rather than as documentary theatre.

Working on Mothers, I found myself reflecting on the cyclical nature of history. Why are people unable to learn from tragedy and build a safe world? We’re advancing technologically, we’re launching ourselves into space, yet we’re unable to live together peacefully on this planet. Where does this hatred come from, this political narcissism, this struggle for one’s own ego?

AK | FL: You began work on ‘Mothers of Kherson’ in a completely different social climate. In recent months, Polish-Ukrainian relations have deteriorated significantly. Does this affect your work?

BW: Ever since the invasion began, my whole family has been doing our very best to help Ukrainians. My Ukrainian friends are still living in my grandmother’s flat. Many families have passed through our home – from Irpin, Kramatorsk and Kyiv – adults, elderly people, babies, teenagers, a pregnant woman and a cat. I remember them all. I remember the twins who had COVID, the teenage sports champion, the deaf painter and the weeping mother who was torn between returning to Kyiv and going to France. I remember my own shame as I walked through Warsaw Central Station, scanning the crowd for those most in need of help while having to overlook the others.

I think Polish politics has played a major role in the current deterioration of relations. The top-down radicalisation of public sentiment has fallen on fertile ground amongst that section of society which is unable to assess the situation properly for itself. People are always looking for an enemy. A few years ago, it was the refugees who were crossing the border from Belarus into Poland in search of safety. Terrible injustices are taking place there; indeed, this remains an unresolved issue.

AK | FL: Fortunately, nationalists are not a majority in Poland. I think a huge number of people can see what’s happening, and the plight of the most vulnerable – those hardest hit by the war – remains important to us.

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Barbara Wysocka during a rehersal of 'Mothers of Kherson', 2026, photo: Krzysztof Bieliński / Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa

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BW: I wonder whether people with anti-Ukrainian sentiments will come to see our performance. Is there a chance that ‘Mothers of Kherson’ might change someone’s way of thinking? After all, this beautiful opera deals with a specific situation. Behind this story – which distills the essence of various people’s fates – lie real children with names and surnames, and actual families enduring a horrific tragedy. I would like everyone who comes to see our performance to be truly aware of this.

AK | FL: Politicians often attend the opera, and today both the opposition and the ruling party are exploiting anti-Ukrainian sentiments. As artists, aren’t you concerned that Polish-Ukrainian tensions might affect the reception of ‘Mothers’? Or that the production might be hijacked by politicians on either side?

BW: That’s likely to happen, but we’re not scared of it.

AK | FL: Is the opera open-ended? You spoke of the responsibility to convey the true stories of these women, and those stories are still unfolding.

BW: Yes, we’re addressing a situation that is not yet over, a practice that’s still going on, and whose effects will be felt for generations to come. The story has no happy ending, no resolution, no conclusion. Not all mothers reach their goal, and of those who do, not all are reunited with their children.

In the end, however, we hear the words of a woman who hasn’t yet been reunited with her daughter: ‘I’ll try again. I’ll go there again, I’ll fill in those forms again. I won’t give up.’ I think this is a crucial message to end on: let’s not give up; let’s do everything we can to bring these children home. Let’s not allow ourselves to simply brush all this aside. Let’s take action to ensure every child returns home.

‘Mothers of Kherson’ directed by Barbara Wysocka – Image Gallery

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