Maria Stewart Sings in Olena Bikhunova’s Voice

A year ago The Day told its readers about the fresh forces that had swelled the soloists’ ranks at the National Opera of Ukraine. Among them was Olena Bikhunova (mezzo soprano), who had a successful debut in two parts simultaneously in Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace. How did her further career take shape?

Olena continues to work at the theater. Last year she was fortunate enough to appear in a number of new parts. Others are already prepared in class and are waiting for their turn to be performed onstage. Usually singers do not speak about such works in advance out of actors’ superstition. However, what Bikhunova has already done onstage is quite impressive. After singing the so different parts of Helene Bezukhov and Sonya in War and Peace, Olena debuted in Pietro Mascagni’s Cavaleria Rusticana as Lola. Then she was introduced in a number of other performances. Speaking about the latest events of the current season, recently the singer first appeared as Gertrude in Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Julia and as Inez in Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore.

Olena has a special affection for the chamber concerts repertoire. Her youth, creative energy, and vocal gift allow her to freely express herself in this sphere, which, however, was always considered accessible to far from every opera singer. The first surprise was the singer’s solo concert within the framework of the Musical Soirees at St. Andrew’s Church project. Olena presented to the audience a large program consisting of Johann Sebastian Bach’s arias and Ludwig van Beethoven’s songs. Such a program is not characteristic for Kyiv concerts, the more so that Olena rendered a number of Bach’s spiritual songs, which, in spite of this composer’s works being extremely popular, are still hardly ever performed on our concert stage. Selecting precisely these opuses for performing at her first solo concert, Bikhunova ran a certain risk. Imagine a program dedicated to only two authors, completely based on the most austere pages of the high classics, where all opuses are sung in the language of the original. However, Olena’s warm timbre, high vocal culture, and interesting selection of the repertoire worked, making the concert a tremendous success. Within the framework of the new season’s Musical Soirees Bikhunova is to give a series of concerts, including the anthology of the nineteenth century’s German romantic song. She will sing the works, which are believed the all-time most beautiful musical pages: Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelsohn, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. It is an open secret that such a repertoire requires a remarkable sense of style and, of course, good command of the German language. This is why it is not very often that we see these names on the playbills. However, Olena seems to be prepared to make a step toward Europe, offering her audience a number of programs that would look customary for, say, Vienna concert halls. So far Bikhunova is the only person who dares to sing this cycle. Among the opuses to be sung, there is the not frequently performed Five Poems by Mary Queen of Scots in Robert Schumann’s cycle. The singer was so enthusiastic with this music that once she said, “I was so deeply involved in Mary Stewart’s emotional experience that sometimes I felt as if I was the one to be executed.”

Olena’s schedule for spring is very tight. She will work on not only on scores but also masterpieces of poetry to which these songs are written. For this purpose, the singer places high emphasis on studying German. Olena works according to a special program for perfecting actors’ pronunciation.