Actually, it turns out that if you want to watch a Ukrainian opera, there's a much easier option: there's a 1939 film (retitled Cossacks in Exile, which you must admit is snappier, at least in English). It was made for a Ukrainian-American audience, apparently (filmed in beautiful New Jersey!), but there are subtitles as a concession to non-Ukrainians. Unsurprisingly, the picture and sound of this print aren't the best, but the film itself is interesting as a historical artifact.
So the story is, these Cossacks are driven out of their homeland by the Russian army and are forced to take refuge in the Ottoman Empire (which the subtitles refer to as "Turkey," which I think is anachronistic--while the name did exist at the time, I don't think it would have been in wide use). They're doing all right there: the biggest thing that happens (to the extent that anything big happens; this is a rather drowsily-plotted piece) is that this older and goofier Cossack named Ivan Karas meets the Sultan without knowing it's him. Hmm...that doesn't sound like much of anything when I put it like that, but there you are. There's also a romance between his niece Oxana and some guy named Andriy, although that REALLY isn't anything.
There are parts of this that are perplexing: there's this other dude who's in love with Oxana, and you'd think this would be some sort of conflict, but it's not much of anything. There's a scene where--apparently--he shoots a dude in a boat, and then (I...guess because they've been framed?) Oxana and Andriy are going to be executed. But then they aren't. And then the Sultan's like, hurray, you can return to your homeland if you want! Were they supposed to be prisoners? I thought they couldn't return because their homeland was overrun by hostile Russians?
It definitely doesn't help that the subtitles here are partial--you can follow the story, but the fact that so many musical numbers are ubsubbed means that you don't get as much of a grasp of the characters as you might--although I persist in thinking that Karas is really the only character who's going to make any impression anyway (also, I note that he has a long Hulk-Hogan-like mustache, as did the title character in Taras Bulba--must be the Ukrainian style). But the point is, whether it's this particular movie or the opera itself, this isn't as coherent as you might hope.
One thing I liked and found interesting was the super-chill way Islam is depicted: when Karas first meets the Sultan, he's like, okay, I'll get us a drink...wait a minute, your religion says you can't drink, doesn't it? With which the Sultan agrees, but then his, I dunno, vizier, later decides, ah, let's bend the rules a bit, and knocks a few down. Then later we have Karas visiting the Sultan, and his first request is, can I see the harem? Nope, he replies, that's illegal. Please? Karas persists, and the Sultan decides, oh, what the hell, why not? The depiction of Islam in opera would be a GREAT subject for a doctoral dissertation.
As for the music...well, it's okay. There are some energetic folk dances. But I wasn't overly blown away. I do think the lack of subtitles in many of what seem like key arias is a significant problem, but I don't know that I'd've loved it in any case. Still, as I said an interesting cultural artifact.
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