After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War part of the company was evacuated to Kirghizia, later, in June 1942, the theater moved to Przhevalsk city, where actors held concerts in hospitals and military units.

[1] In January 1944 the theater returned to Donetsk and already in September, right after the liberation of the Donets Basin a premiere of Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor took place.

On December 9, 1999 by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the theater was named after Soviet Ukrainian opera singer Anatoliy Solovyanenko.

[2][6] The Theatre was named after prominent opera tenor Anatoliy Solovyanenko, awardee of Taras Shevchenko and Lenin Prizes, who was born in Donetsk.

In different years on the stage of Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre such stars of Soviet Union art danced and sang, as Ivan Kozlovsky and Sergei Lemeshev, Maria Bieshu, Olga Lepeshinskaya, Marina Semenova, Klavdiya Shulzhenko and many others.