National Opera And Ballet Of Ukraine

The opera house sits in the middle of Kyiv, a few minutes from St Sophia's Cathedral, St Volodymyr's and Shevchenko National University, so you'll almost certainly walk past it at some point. The company has been here since 1867, which makes it one of the oldest in the country, and the building you see opened in 1901, after fire destroyed the old theatre in 1896. Its full name is the Taras Shevchenko National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of Ukraine, after the Ukrainian poet and artist.

The architecture is what stops people on the pavement. It's Viktor Schroeter's neo-Renaissance design, and it went through a major reconstruction in the 1980s that added modern facilities behind the old facade.

Going to a Performance

There are over 1,300 seats, which is a lot for a theatre and means tickets are usually gettable, but check the programme on their website before you plan an evening around it. The repertoire covers opera, ballet and concerts, with operas sung in Ukrainian, Italian and French, so if the language matters to you, look at the listing first. Don't come expecting Swan Lake: since the full-scale invasion the company has stopped performing works by Russian composers, Tchaikovsky included, and in January 2026 it publicly rebuked two of its principal dancers for appearing in Swan Lake abroad. If an air raid alert goes off and the threat is serious, the performance stops and you'll be taken to the shelter. If you'd rather follow every word, English cinema is the easier evening out.

The programme is deliberately broad and there's usually something suitable for children as well as the standard repertoire, which is worth knowing if you're travelling as a family.

The building has survived a great deal: the First World War and the rise and fall of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Second World War, and then the major reconstruction completed in 1988.

Nakama Sushi is about half a mile away if you want somewhere to eat afterwards.