Identical Twin Tenor and Baritone

There are two very special soloists that have worked with the National Opera for the past six seasons. They are almost impossible to tell apart, so people watching The Barber of Seville are totally confused, hearing different voices from Count Almaviva and Figaro but seeing the same face. And the reason are simple: the two singers are twin brothers Petro and Pavlo Pryimak.

As much as the management can avoid it, the two do not appear on stage together, lest the audience be led astray by their likeness. Petro is engaged in foreign classical renditions (e.g., Don Juan, Madame Butterfly and Pavlo in the domestic operas Prince Ihor, A Zaporizhzhian Cossack Beyond the Danube, and Anna Yaroslavna, Queen of France.

The brothers Pryimak are winners of numerous international contests, graduates of a music college in Chernivtsi. Their first vocal teacher was Yuliya Shevchuk (Palkova). At Kyiv Conservatory, they found themselves in the able hands of Kostiantyn Ohnevy, himself a celebrated singer and professor.

They often sing duets and their style is noticeably distinct from many others' by their excellent orchestration, fine timbre, and vocal vibration. Experts maintain that the Ukrainian professional stage has not seen a matching duet for the past 25-30 years and the two can handle the most versatile and sophisticated compositions.

Their very first albums with Christmas and spring carols, titled Greeting Shining Holiday became a music collector's rarity. Petro and Pavlo are finishing work on a CD with songs of Ukrainian composers and folk renditions.

Petro is 40 minutes older than Pavlo. Throughout their life they have parted very rarely. Both spent a number of years living in dormitories (they come from Sadky, a village in Ternopil oblast. This summer they were finally officially registered as Kyiv residents. Each now has a two- room apartment on the same floor of the same building on Kharkivske Shose.