Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, the wife of Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb, announced that her “Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra” will perform Beethoven’s famous 9th Symphony, which is centered around Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy (An die Freude”). However, Wilson is replacing the word “{Freude” in the text with the Ukrainian neo-Nazi chant “Slava.”
”Slava Ukraini!” or “Glory to Ukraine!” was the infamous chant of Hitler’s Ukrainian cohorts in World War II, which has been preserved since then as a signal chant by subsequent generations of Ukrainian Banderites. Because of the history, one cannot chant “Heil!” in German without invoking “Heil Hitler!,” nor can one loudly declare “Slava!” in Ukraine without invoking the repulsive “Slava Ukraini!” chant of Hitler’s murderous “Ukrainian nationalist” collaborators, notably Stepan Bandera.
Wilson, who brags of her Ukrainian heritage (from her maternal grandmother Eve Sharples, née Olinick) and of her Ukrainian community of Winnipeg, Canada, issued her press statement yesterday:
