Enemy of Imitation

This is quite telling of Shtonda who meticulously analyzes after each performance how he sang his role and executed each vocal phrase. His exacting attitude toward himself sometimes borders on self-flagellation. However, this perfectionism and indefatigability (despite his extraordinary vocal gift and dramatic talent) were the main reasons why Taras has been more and more often spoken of as a new star of the Ukrainian operatic stage.

Once his parents gave him a Fedor Shaliapin record, and the teenager decided with the self-confidence, so typical of his age, that he could sing no worse. Now he recall this with a smile. The artist may have preserved some of his childish spontaneity to this day. He likes very much to give presents, lavishes praises on his colleagues (which is not typical of the artistic community). He can be as inattentive and careless as a first-grader, for which he later scolds himself mercilessly. On the other hand, he memorizes new musical material easily and quickly, and here he is amazingly concentrated and industrious. He loves to play the piano; especially when learning a new part: this allows him to feel the latter more adequately, to "see the picture," so to speak.

Taras Shtonda's Kyiv Conservatory Professor Halyna Sukhorukova taught him that the audience can always tell real dramatic identification from going through the motions. He has since worked on every part with almost a jeweler's precision. "Creating an operatic image I seem to exist in a musical whirlwind, searching for a special meaning between the lines of notes, trying to understand the composer's original concept and determine the character's singular innate vocal identity," the young man admits. Complete creative immersion pays off; the singer can discover new vocal capacities in himself. His current repertoire includes Verdi's Grand Inquisitor and Philip II in Don Carlos, Zachary in Nabucco, and Monterone in Rigoletto; Don Basilio in Rossini's Barber of Seville, the Commander in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Kyrdiah in Mykola Lysenko's Taras Bulba, Dosifei in Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, bass parts in Verdi's, Mozart's, Bruckner's, and Stankevych's Requiems and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, as well as other world vocal masterpieces. Taras Shtonda is now working on Boris Timofeyevich's part in Shostakovich's Katerina Izmailova.

In 1997, the singer won silver medals at the Vignias International Vocal Contest in Barcelona and the Maria Callas one in Athens. He is moved to recall the legendary Russian bass Boris Shtokalov, member of the jury of the Ivan Patorzhinsky First Vocal Contest in Luhansk, tell him, "Son, carry your timbre and soul through the rest of your life" (in that contest he shared first place with Lviv's singer Serhiy Mahera).

Taras is increasingly often invited to sing on different operatic stages. This spring he is traveling to Spain. The young man considers passing the current trial by popularity the most important thing; he wants to preserve the music in himself and himself in the music.