Wassyl Slipak

Vasyl Slipak was nine when he joined the Lviv choir Dudaryk, and the Ukrainian repertoire he learned there stayed with him through a career made almost entirely in France. He took the Grand Prix at the France Télécom competition in Clermont-Ferrand in 1994, auditioned successfully for the Paris National Opera in 1997, and sang there and across France for nineteen years in the Italian and French repertoire — and, unusually for a baritone, in countertenor roles as well. In March 2016 he toured with the State Opera Rousse's La bohème, singing at Esch-sur-Alzette, Saint-Loubès, Ghent and Antwerp. Three months later he was dead. He had returned to Ukraine as a volunteer and was killed near Luhanske on 29 June 2016; he was posthumously named a Hero of Ukraine, and since 2017 a competition for young singers in Lviv has carried his name.