Beethoven and Apartment for Jubilee

Volodymyr Kozhukhar, chief conductor of the National Opera of Ukraine, recently celebrated his sixtieth birthday. His repertoire is vast, but for the jubilee concert, held at the opera, he selected not a ballet or opera (he is in his element in both), but his favorite refined classical composition, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D Minor. Mr. Kozhukhar said that in his 37 years as conductor he has turned to the great German composer’s heritage a hundred times and that he considers this particular composition the acme of symphony music.

“Fewer words and more good music” is his credo, and he remained true to it on the festive occasion, allowing just ten minutes for formalities. Numerous salutatory messages were recited, the celebrity was proclaimed recipient of the Order for Service and presented with the most precious gift from the mayors office, authorization to an apartment. Volodymyr Kozhukhar put his whole heart into conducting the gala concert, demonstrating the polyphonic capacities of the orchestra, choir, and soloists. One could sense the sure hand of a master, and the conductor once again showed that he remains one of Europe’s most interesting maestros. Already in the first part of the symphony the audience became aware of the music’s cosmic scope. Gradually the main theme crystallized with its strict rhythm. Beethoven brilliantly conveys through sound the profound philosophic image of his eternal struggle with his doubts, sorrows, and gloom pierced by joy and happiness like rays of hope. In the second part the orchestra sent waves of alarm and a bouquet of melodies with the elevated Adagio transforming into the D-major Andante, with graceful variations, fantastic dreams, the closing pianissimo upbeat leaving the audience in deep concentration, and the glorious finale with Schiller’s Ode to Joy lauding the joys of life (soloists: Lidiya Zabiliasta, Liudmyla Yurchenko, Oleksandr Vostriakov, and Taras Shtonda). Beethoven’s call for millions to embrace each other with sound is especially relevant now. The composer succeeded in “striking fire from hearts” and Kozhukhar sensed it and transferred it to music with a jeweler’s precision. The conductor possesses an amazing combination of tremendous emotionalism and a strikingly dramatic approach to every overtone, keen awareness of the nuances, and skillful elaboration of every detail; he can see and hear the composition as a whole, stressing the key trends, conveying the composer’s concept. The vocalists describe his hands as magic and the dancers claim that when Volodymyr Kozhukhar takes the conductor’s stand the entire performance goes without a hitch, with every dancer feeling perfectly confident onstage. The musicians admire his faultless knowledge of the score, his memory is like a computer, and he can lend every classical piece a modern touch. There is an interesting fact in the maestro’s biography. Fresh from Kyiv Conservatory, he took a course of on-the-job training under the noted French conductor Igor Markevitch, amazing the latter by memorizing a most sophisticated Stravinsky score overnight..

After the concert, much as the celebrity protested, his current and former colleagues proceeded to laud him, sparing few praises, calling him a magician, even a marshal of music, reciting poems, and tossing bouquets. Volodymyr Kozhukhar listened to the eulogies with a smile and at one point countered with his inherent sense of humor, “A jubilee is when there are lots of flowers, but the celebrity is still alive.” In the end, Mykola Hnatiuk, singer and stage director, started “Long Life...” picked up by the choir and audience.

The festivities over, the conductor is back to work, and he firmly believes that the life of every performer is constant ascent to the summit. Volodymyr Kozhukhar has many plans and is eager to bring them to life. He is working on a premiere scheduled for April, Prokofiev’s Love of Three Oranges (to be produced by Nikolai Kuznetsov, Bolshoi’s stage director and professor of Moscow Conservatory). Now the maestro is concentrating on this opera.