Liudmyla Tretiak’s book of reminiscences, A Step into Eternity , was officially presented recently.
There was a host of paradoxes in the life of Vasyl Tretiak, an outstanding Ukrainian singer. For instance, he was the only child in a large Ukrainian family, who was registered as Russian because he was born in Kursk oblast. But still in infancy the future performer found himself in Poltava oblast, and from then on his whole life was closely connected with Ukraine.
After serving in an army ensemble, where he demonstrated a powerful and beautiful voice, he applied to the Kharkiv Conservatory. At first he was supposed to become a bass. Later he was reclassified as a baritone. But in a short time it became clear the student had an extremely rare voice — a dramatic, even heroic, tenor with velvet flats and very high sharps. And, years later, when Vasyl Tretiak was a famous singer and taught at the Kyiv Conservatory, he could show his students without any problem how and what to sing in bass, baritone, or tenor.
People’s Artist of Ukraine Anatoly Mokrenko, despite the fact that his Kyiv opera stage characters had so many dramatic conflicts, even using such cold steel as swords and daggers, with Vasyl Tretiak’s heroes, says today his former partner had a historic tenor. For Ukrainian operatic art had only one other singer in the twentieth century, Yuri Kyporenko-Domansky, who had a tenor of similar power and dramatic expressiveness.
Recalling the sixties, when Tretiak’s talent was in full bloom, his wife Liudmyla, a chamber singer and docent at the Kyiv Institute of Theatrical Art, says that if the Ukrainian singers of those times had enjoyed the same opportunity as their Moscow colleagues to travel abroad, they would have conquered the peaks of world vocal art. But they were not so lucky. Vasyl Tretiak was quite well known in the former socialist- camp countries, such as Rumania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Prominent Ukrainian singer Halyna Tuftina recalls an episode testifying to Vasyl Tretiak’s extraordinary vocal capacities. Once they were invited to sing in Aida in the Rumanian city of Timisoara, where Kyiv artists were well known and loved. The singer thought his traveling documents would be finalized quickly, so he applied to the visa department shortly before departure. And it so happened that Halyna had already left for Rumania, while her partner was still waiting for his passport. On the day of show the house was full, and all the actors were in place, except for the one who was to perform the role of Radames. The theater administration had to appease the audience announcing that the singer was still on an airplane delayed by the weather. The audience agreed to wait. An hour and a half later Vasyl Tretiak was brought to the theater. Halyna was horrified. How could he possibly sing just after the flight and without a rehearsal the most difficult aria of Radames with a C-flat tone insurmountable for many singers? To allay any fears, the poor Aida had to keep her fingers crossed in her pocket. Of course, the situation was saved not owing not to this but to Tretiak’s wonderful talent, which was quite able to withstand such a test. Thus when he sang the aria, the house burst into such a thunderous applause that it seemed the chandelier might fall. The Kyiv guests were literally carried out of the hall on the hands of the audience.
Many vocal connoisseurs were struck that Tretiak was the only singer who performed some leads. This is the rarest of exceptions in opera. For, as a rule, understudies are detailed for every show, ready to stand in for the lead vocalists should they unexpectedly take ill. Thus, it is thanks to Vasyl Tretiak that Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots was on the Kyiv stage for over ten years. Only the unique voice of the Kyiv singer could cope with the role of Raoul which bears a very high tessitura. People’s Artiste of Ukraine Yevdokiya Kolesnyk call this role supremely difficult and ethereal.
Vasyl Tretiak did not much like singing in concert. He was drawn primarily by the opera with its bright life full of intense and deep emotions. They say you could not approach him when he was preparing to go onstage. A noticeable achievement of the his creative life was the role of Otello in the opera by Giuseppe Verdi. Even his looks seemed to be cut out for this role: dark complexion, keen dark eyes, a shock of curly hair, and strong well-built body. He prepared this role without canceling any of his other current repertoire performances. Many stood down, but Vasyl Tretiak continued to work on the image of Otello, withstanding unbelievable vocal, physical, and psychological pressures. The role was developed in fruitful cooperation with experienced theater producer Dmytro Aleksidze and young conductor Stefan Turchak. The singer’s colossal self-abandon and living through the tragic destinies of his heroes could not but affect his health (even his closest friends did not know that he had been hospitalized for a heart disease during the 1945 campaign against Japan, in which he took part). A severe infarction idled Tretiak for two years. And upon returning to the stage, he could no longer sing his former roles. But even more simple roles in his performance like Bomelyi in The Tsar’s Bride and Kobzar in Taras Bulba pleased the audience with their interesting accents.
The wonderful voice and dramatic talent of Vasyl Tretiak, People’s Artiste of Ukraine and then of the USSR were never immortalized for future generations. All that is left are imperfect, amateurish, and unprofessional recordings. He made very few studio recordings, although he was a singer of the level of Tamagno, Caruso, and Del Monaco.
The performer’s colleagues, who came to honor his memory in the Teacher’s House for an evening organized by writer and art scholar Mykola Kaharlytsky, said that nature has not given Ukraine such a voice again, although Tretiak passed away a decade ago. This is why so many words of thanks were addressed to Liudmyla Tretiak, who managed to collect reminiscences about her husband and publish the book A Step into Eternity , as well as to the singer’s son Mykola, a young opera producer who helped publish the book.
We can only regret that the Soros Foundation, which at first supported this publishing project and forced Liudmyla to rework the book and reprocess a host of various documents, failed to allot the money for the print-run of only 2,000 copies from the publishers.
Another bitter paradox is that three years ago, Kyiv somehow forgot the seventieth anniversary of this outstanding singer. On the contrary, he was remembered in Chisinau, where he made his debut on the operatic stage. As for us, we have so far done very little for this historic tenor to hold a fitting and permanent place in the history of the Ukrainian opera.
