Solomea Star of Opera's Golden Age

Solomea Krushelnytska, was hailed as the world's leading dramatic soprano during the Golden Age of opera at the turn of the 20th century. Born in 1872 into the family of a Ukrainian Catholic priest and his wife with eight children in a small village in Western Ukraine, she studied opera first in Lviv, and later in Milan, Vienna, and Paris. She battled to rise to fame and to perform with opera legends like Giacomo Puccini, Arturo Toscanini, and Enrico Caruso until she reached superstardom.

Along with many other achievements, such as premiering the roles of Salome and Elktra in Italy with Arturo Toscanini, few people know that after the infamous failure of Madame Butterfly's debut at La Scala in 1904, Puccini turned to Solomea to help him rescue that opera. Working together they succeeded, and it remains one of the most popular operas still today. She also took the stage in other leading roles in major opera houses in Europe, South America, North America and Northern Africa. Throughout her career, she shared the fruits of her success with her family members.

Towards the end of her career, she moved back to Western Ukraine on the eve of World War II. Her days of resounding applause, star-struck crowds, and critical acclaim suddenly disappeared. Her beautiful voice was drowned out by the gunfire of Soviet and Nazi armies. After a lifetime of glitterati, she was stuck near the center of one of the most dangerous places on earth. She was divested of her wealth first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, and then prevented from leaving the Soviet Union. Her life was no longer about greatness, but instead, was reduced to struggling to survive. Yet reverence for her talent likely helped her escape most of the ultraviolence that rampaged through her city at that time. She kept the author's mother, aunt, and his grandparents safe during the war by sheltering them in her apartment. She spent her final years in Lviv, the same place where her rise to fame and fortune had begun.

Told from the perspective of her grand nephew Andriy Semotiuk, with intimate details related to his family's immigrant experience never before shared, her rags-to-riches life story is an amazing odyssey, a triumph of the human spirit, an incredible testament to her dedication to art, and an inspiration to people everywhere.