John DUYKERS: “It is as if we saw scenes of the Holodomor with our own eyes”

You have taken part in all performances of Virko Baley’s opera Red Earth. Hunger. Did you read up on the Holodomor while working on the part?

“I read Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow and other books. Virko told me a lot about the famine, so I could figure out what was going on in Ukraine back then. For me, the Holodomor is one of the examples of what Stalin did in order to consolidate his power, when no one cared how many victims and lives were buried.”

You have a worldwide renown as a participant of the premiere of John Adams’ opera Nixon in China. The plot is based on real events of 1972: the US president Richard Nixon’s first official visit to China and his meeting with the 79-year-old Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders. How long had you worked on the part of Mao?

“I prepared the part for three years, both on my own and with my instructor. There were two preliminary concert performances of the opera, which allowed Adams to make some amendments to the score. Stage rehearsals with the director Peter Sellars lasted for a month, then there was a fortnight’s break, and another two weeks of work. This was a joint project by several American and European theaters, so the opera was shown in Houston, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, then in Canada and the Dutch Opera, later in Paris and Edinburg, twice in Frankfurt, and so on, and so forth. Overall, it has been performed 63 times. Recently I took part in a new production of this opera at the theater of Long Beach.”

We do not know, and apparently, never will, about all the details of that historic meeting, so the authors of the opera had to invent a lot of details. Was such a detailed reconstruction of a historical event the very fortunate step which largely caused the opera’s success?

“Of course, the spectators believe that they are witnessing real-life events, and it is absolutely fascinating. The same is true of Baley’s opera: it is as though we saw scenes of the Holodomor with our own eyes.”