In 1989, Mstislav Rostropovitch went to play at the foot of the Berlin Wall to celebrate its fall.
Thirty years later, a piano and war hymns have replaced
Bach's
Cello Suites .
Invited by the authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa performed on May 9 in Mariupol, on the occasion of the Russian Victory Day celebrations commemorating the end of the Second World War.
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A video posted on Russian social networks shows the pianist playing outside, surrounded by a cluster of people with whom she happily sings a Soviet song from the Great Patriotic War, as the world conflict in Russia is nicknamed.
It would be one of the five performances given in Mariupol on May 9 and 10 by Valentina Lisitsa.
These semi-impromptu concerts were organized at different points of the city by several DPR youth associations, the Russian news agency Regnum reported.
"I consider it my duty, at this difficult time, to be alongside the liberated population of Mariupol
," Valentina Lisitsa said on May 9, a few days after a concert organized in Moscow, the Regnum agency said. .
Residents are no longer afraid to pay homage to their ancestors and grandparents who liberated the world from fascism.”
Guest of honor, the pianist took part in the various official celebrations organized in Mariupol by the DPR, alongside its president, Denis Pouchiline.
The festivities mixing Russian and Soviet symbols intended to stage the return of Mariupol to the bosom of Moscow.
And this despite the continued bombing throughout the day of May 9, noted the foreign journalists present on the spot.
Long-standing support for separatists
Valentina Lisitsa has repeatedly supported the separatist republics of Donbass since 2014.
In 2015, she denounced the
"atrocities"
committed in Ukraine against Russian minorities.
The artist performed four times in concert in Donetsk, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. She also decorated the tomb of Alexander Zakharchenko, the first president of the DPR, who was assassinated in August 2018.
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Born in kyiv in 1973, Valentina Lisitsa moved to Florida in 1991, in the United States, to pursue her career as a pianist.
The success of his interpretations of Chopin and Rachmaninoff, posted online in 2007, ensured him international fame.
They are among the first examples of viral music videos.
The pianist notably performed on stage in Paris in 2014, Salle Pleyel, replacing Boris Berezovsky.
Besieged from the beginning of March by the Russian army, the port city of Mariupol was the subject of a bitter bombardment campaign as well as violent urban combat.
Devastated, the city has been gradually taken over by the Russian and DPR authorities since the end of April.
The last pocket of Ukrainian units, made up of about 1,000 fighters, has since retreated into the underground maze of the Azovstal steelworks.
Lacking a piano, or even a cello, a soldier from the Azov regiment besieged in the steel complex was content to provide an a cappella counterpoint to the cavalcades of Valentina Lisitsa on Sunday.
By paying tribute, between two distant bomb detonations, to
Stefania
, the Ukrainian title winner of the 2022 edition of Eurovision.