top of page
MWSTW_logo_bw_circle_4000px.png
Support Us

Penelope. Seven Ways To Wait

Waiting can change the shape of a life. It can be quiet and private; it can be full of fear, longing, hope or anger. It can last a moment, or become the condition in which everything else must be lived.

 

Penelope. Seven Ways To Wait is a contemporary operatic work for mezzo-soprano, female chorus and orchestra. It returns to the ancient story of Penelope — the woman who waited — and brings it close to the present. Through various emotional states, the work looks at waiting as something shared across very different lives.

 

ome of those experiences are rooted in real events: the Withstanding movement is built around real text messages sent by a Ukrainian woman to her father after russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. She continued writing while waiting for news of him, only later learning that he had been killed on the first day of the invasion. Even after learning of his death, she continued to write to him, unable to let go of the hopeless hope that one day he might still respond.

A story from an old myth, heard in the present

Penelope is often remembered for the years she spent waiting for Odysseus to return. Here, her story is not treated as a distant legend. It becomes a way into the complicated inner life of waiting: the hours that pass, the choices that must still be made, and the effort of holding on when there is no clear answer.

 

The work moves between the mythic and the immediate. It asks what waiting means in the world we know now, and gives that question a musical life through a solo voice, a female chorus and orchestra.

 

Music by Kristina Arakelyan and a libretto by Helen Eastman bring this world into being with a sense of scale and intimacy: one person’s vigil set against the voices around her.

Creative and production context

  • Music — Kristina Arakelyan

  • Libretto — Helen Eastman

  • Commissioned by — Music Will Save The World

  • Orchestral world premiere — 22 August 2025, Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic, Ukraine

  • World-premiere director and executive producer; principal role — Anna Starushkevych

For presenters and programming teams

If Penelope. Seven Ways To Wait feels relevant to your programme or organisation, Music Will Save The World welcomes programming enquiries and requests for further materials from the full production.

​

Contact MWSTW about programming

 

Or write to musicwstworld@gmail.com.

Made in Ukraine

Music Will Save The World commissioned Penelope. Seven Ways To Wait. Its orchestral world premiere was presented on 22 August 2025 at the Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic in Ukraine, as part of Philharmonic Evenings II: British Edition 2025.

 

The work was created and staged in wartime Ukraine over 21 days, with severely limited human and instrumental resources.

 

Anna Starushkevych directed, executive produced the orchestral world premiere and performed the principal role.

  • Witching from 'Penelope. Seven Ways to Wait'

    Woods, 1575. A lady-in-waiting at the court of Elizabeth I has fled to the woods. Having been raped by a courtier she has sought out the ‘witches’ to get an abortion potion.

  • Withstanding from 'Penelope. Seven Ways To Wait'

    A story of waiting through war, built from real messages sent by a Ukrainian woman to her father during the first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He never replied and was later confirmed to have been killed on the first day of the invasion. His daughter refused to stop waiting for his messages.

  • Winning from 'Penelope. Seven Ways To Wait'

    Inside a chess grand master's mind while she awaits her opponent’s move.

People behind Penelope. Seven Way to Wait

Composer - Kristina Arakelyan

Librettist - Helen Eastman

Director - Anna Starushkevych

Conductor - Roman Dzundzа

Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra

​

CAST

Penelope(s) - Anna Starushkevych

 

Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic

 

Chorus

Soprano

Anastasiia Mykhailiv

Tetiana Makoviichuk

Nadiia Vivcharuk

Nadiia Kernikevych

Volodymyra Pasichna

 

Alto

Olha Kutsela

Iryna Borukh

Nadiia Abramchuk

Tetiana Trush

Anastasiia Tarnovetska

Nataliia Mandrotsyn

DIRECTION & DESIGN

Director - Anna Starushkevych

Assistant Director - Taras Vasyliuk Lighting

Designer - Anna Starushkevych

Associate Lighting Designer - Roman Rinas

Lighting Technician - Viktor Mezhyritskyi

 

Penelope dress consultant designer - Mayou Trikerioti

Costume Support - Olha Rudnytska and Bohdana Terletska

 

PRODUCTION

Executive Producer - Anna Starushkevych

Commissioned and produced by Music Will Save The World

Production support - Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic team

 

STAGE MANAGEMENT

Stage Manager - Dariia Verkalets

 

VIDEO & PHOTOGRAPHY

Video Director - Anna Starushkevych

Director of Photography - Yaromyr Delikatnyi

Director of Photography - Andrii Mykhailo Chad

 

AUDIO

Audio Engineering & Production - Volodymyr Punko

 

POST-PRODUCTION

Audio Editing and Mixing - Volodymyr Punko

Editor - Yaromyr Delikatny

Subtitles and Credits - Oleksiy Andreyev

 

SPECIAL THANKS

O.A.

W.P. and friend

British Council Ukraine

Volodymyr Rudnytskyi - CEO of the Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic and Head of the Ivano-Frankivsk branch of the National Music Union

bottom of page