Solomiya Krushelnytska — Voice of Ukrainian Europe (1893-1925)

A 2025 exhibition dedicated to thirty-two years of the European stage career of Solomiya Krushelnytska (23 September 1872 — 16 November 1952) — from her Lviv Opera debut in 1893 to her farewell concert activity in 1925. The centrepiece is her key stage peaks: La Scala debut in Milan 1898; the rescue of Giacomo Puccini's (1858-1924) Madama Butterfly in Brescia on 28 May 1904 — after the disastrous Milan premiere of that same year, Puccini personally asked Krushelnytska to perform the lead role in the revised version, and her performance saved the opera for the world repertoire. A separate section is her resonant debuts on the world's greatest opera stages: the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1906-1908 seasons — Marguerite in Faust, Tosca, Brunhilde in the Wagnerian cycle); Buenos Aires Teatro Colón (1903) — her first South American triumph; performances in Lisbon, Paris, Cairo. The hall displays original stage costumes from the museum's holdings, premiere programmes, photo chronicles of performances, correspondence with Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), and Giacomo Puccini. The exhibition places Krushelnytska in historical context: a native of Ternopil region in the era of Austria-Hungary, she presented the Ukrainian voice on the highest opera stages of the world — an act of cultural diplomacy in times when Ukraine did not exist as a political entity.