The new theater season begins in the first days of September. Among the most famous Ukrainian operas are Hulak-Artemovskiy’s Zaporozhets za Dunayem , Mykola Lysenko’s Taras Bulba and Rizdvyanna Nich. Bohdan Khmelnytskiy , Yaroslav Mudriy, Ukradene Shchastya , Lisova Pisnya... Opea has long been the nation’s forte
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| PHÎÒÎ: wikipedia.org |
A national matter
Ukrainians are a musical nation. Specialists affirm that the phonetics of the Ukrainian language is ideal for singing and resemble the Italian language in terms of melodicity. For this reason, the emergence of Ukrainian national opera on the world scene in the 19th century seemed to be totally natural. Unlike other countries in which opera is considered an elite pastime, though, in Ukraine it immediately became pretty popular.
The Ukrainian opera school formed at a time when in both Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, which the divided Ukraine belonged to, there was a quest for national identity. At the time, choir societies and amateur theaters became popular for staging musical compositions on national subjects. The intelligentsia sang songs and Cossack thoughts and created compositions on folklore motifs that fully corresponded to the words of Mykhailo Hlinka: “The people write music, while we composers merely arrange it.” In addition to amateur theaters, professional theaters began operating in Kyiv since 1803 and in Odesa since 1810.
The fact that famous Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky used Ukrainian melodies in a number of his works, for example, in Symphony No. 2 and the Concerto No. 1 for Piano accompanied by an orchestra, proves the extent to which Ukrainians had an impact on the music world.
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| Mykola Lysenko PHÎÒÎ: wikipedia.org |
Moreover, Tchaikovsky wrote the operas Mazepa and Cherevychky exclusively on Ukrainian subjects, while Hungarian composer Franz Liszt wrote pieces for the piano Ukrainian Ballad and Thoughts, as well as a symphonic poem version of the opera Mazepa.
From the stage into real life
Zaporozhets Beyond the Danube by Semen Hulak-Artemovskiy is considered the first Ukrainian opera. As a composer, he only showed his talent at the age of 50, before which he was widely known as a bass-baritone soloist of the Imperial Russian Opera in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
The native of the Cherkasy oblast was an understudy of Hlinka, who saw the talent of the young pupil of the Kyiv seminary, and after completing his studies in France and Italy Hulak-Artemovskiy debuted in 1841 in the opera house of Florence.
The composer’s Zaporozhets Beyond the Danube was staged at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in 1863 made a huge impression on the public audience. By the way, Zaporozhets is also considered the first Russian operetta. Though it was labeled a “comic opera”, while in terms of style and the presence of broad dialogs it was a typical operetta – lyrical, merry and based on Ukrainian folk melodies.
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| Borys Hmyrya PHÎÒÎ: wikipedia.org |
This applies to an extent to another great opera Natalka Poltavka by Mykola Lysenko in 1889. The graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory is considered the pioneer of the Ukrainian classical music school. His works formed the basis of the repertoires of Ukrainian theater, while the arias from his operas became folk songs.
The reverse of fortune in the relationship between the opera’s two main heroes Natalka and Petro caught the attention of the Ukrainian audience to such a degree that almost 120 years later the piece remains on the stages of amateur theaters and the song Prayer for Ukraine (Molytva za Ukrainu) became the spiritual anthem of the country.
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| Solomiya Krushelnytska PHÎÒÎ: UNIAN |
Madame Butterfly from Ternopil
Kyiv’s opera theater was opened in 1867 and is the National Opera of Ukraine. The current building of the Odesa Opera was built in 1887. Such world renowned classical music composers as Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rakhmaninov directed in the Odesa opera theater and Enrico Caruso, Fyodor Shalyapin, Solomiya Krushelnytska, Antonina Nezhdanova and Leonid Sobinov sang there.
The opera house in Lviv was built in 1900 and is today named in honor of Krushelnytska. This young Ternopil-born lass, a daughter of a priest once came to the rescue of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. This happened after Puccini presented his new opera Madam Butterfly at La Scala in Milan.
Despite the participation of prominent Italian opera singers, the performance was a flop and the maestro fell into deep depression. Puccini’s friends convinced him to invite Krushelnytska, who was highly renowned at the time in Europe, to sing the main aria in his opera.
On May 29, 1904, the revised Madame Butterfly premiered on the stage of the Grande Theater in Brescia, Italy and this time was a smashing success. The audience gave seven encores demanding the actors and composer to return to the stage.
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| Semen Hulak-Artemovskiy PHÎÒÎ: wikipedia.org |
After this the grateful Puccini presented the Ukrainian diva his portrait with the inscription: “A splendid and charming Butterfly”.
Strangely enough, the heyday of Ukrainian music seems to have come at seemingly an entirely inappropriate time. While in 1918 Ukrainian Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskiy failed to establish a strong and stable state, he did succeded in founding the National Symphony Orchestra, the First and Second National Choirs and the Maiboroda National Merited Bandurists of Ukraine.
Nation’s jems
Ivan Kozlovskiy, a native of the Vasylkivskiy County in the Kyiv Oblast, is considered among the most illustrious opera singers of Ukraine. From the age of 10 he sang in the choir of the Mykhailivskiy Monastery in Kyiv and later joined opera troupes in Poltava and Kharkiv.
From 1926 he sang in the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and at the end of the 1930s he became of Stalin’s favorite opera singers. For unknown to this day reasons, Kozlovskiy retired from the opera stage in 1954 at the height of his popularity.
Another star of Ukrainian opera Borys Hmyrya was born in the village of Lebedyn into a family of a bricklayer. He worked as a mover and sailor. He graduated from an institute in Kharkiv, and only after he entered and finished the Conservatory in 1939. Since then he had performed on the stages of the Kharkiv and Kyiv operas.
Yet another opera genius Anatoliy Solovyanenko studied at the Donetsk Polytechnic, then lectured descriptive geometry.
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| Anatoliy Solovyanenko PHÎÒÎ:UKRINFORM |
At a national talent show in 1962 he brilliantly executed the aria of Radames in Verdi’Aida, impressing the jury with the incomparable lightness of the high notes his voice managed to hit.
The singer was invited to join one of the best opera theaters in the U.S.S.R., today the National Opera of Ukraine and was sent as an intern to La Scala. Solovyanenko became the first Soviet tenor to be invited to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in the U.S. Ukrainian songs were invariably a part of his repertoire.
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| Ivan Kozlovskiy PHÎÒÎ: wikipedia.org |
Today, soloist of the National Opera Volodymyr Hryshko, Kharkiv-based baritone Oleksiy Duhinov and soloist of the National Opera Taras Shtonda, who was invited to Kyiv from the Bolshoi Theater enjoy popularity in Ukraine and abroad.
Kyiv aficionados of classical opera will again have a chance to hear their tremendous voices from the start of the new season, when they will again sing about the main aspects of life – namely, love, their native land and the history of their people. The Ukrainian accent, as earlier, will be clearly audible in world classical music as it long ago became the signature of our country.
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