FROM NOW ON ANATOLY SOLOVYANENKO, JR. CAN LOOK OUT ON HIS FATHER’S MONUMENT THROUGH THE WINDOW

A statue of great Ukrainian tenor Anatoly Solovyanenko was unveiled by his home at 16 Instytutska Street on September 24, his birthday.

The sculptor, Mykola Rapai, cast it in bronze (a granite copy was installed on Solovyanenko’s grave in Kozyn this July). The singer’s family makes no secret of the fact that President Leonid Kuchma and Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko had to step in to have the project carried out. Anatoly Solovyanenko, Jr. can now see his father’s bronze back from his window. He says it is as though his father were out taking a walk soon to return. It is good to know that people remember him. The singer’s widow Svitlana is finishing sorting out his huge archives. Part of his memorabilia, like the duke’s costume from Rigoletto, in which Solovyanenko made his operatic debut, will be sent to Donetsk, his native land, to be displayed in the local opera house’s newly organized museum bearing the singer’s name. Kyiv’s Museum of Literature and Art is arranging a standing exposition illustrating Solovyanenko’s creative achievements, including private correspondence with letters from his first professor, Oleksandr Korobeichenko, music, vocal scores, posters, photos, and souvenirs from fans. Svitlana Solovyanenko is also contributing an album with clippings of critics’ reviews, which she has kept since 1961.

Bits and pieces are being collected for a new book about the brilliant singer. Musicologist Alla Tereshchenko has written the first monograph on him. The new book is expected to appear next year, in time with Solovyanenko’s seventieth birthday, an excellent present for music lovers.