By Liudmyla ZHYLINA
It is for ten years that the wonderful Svitlana Dobronravova has been singing
for Kyiv's opera lovers. I wish you had heard her duet with Kostiantyn
Fesenko, the accompanist at the Ukrainian National Opera: although this
musician's vocal qualities are rather modest, he is full of sincerity.
When they were rehearsing the scene with Vaudemont and Iolantha on the
eve of the singer's recital dedicated to Tchaikovsky's music, tears cramped
their throats so much that they had to stop singing abruptly. Ms. Dobronravova
even asks her husband not to visit rehearsals with her accompanist, so
that he does not distract her from the almost intimate process of shared
creation, which requires full mutual understanding in performing a piece
of music. And although the singer will not allow excessive agitation to
affect her singing later onstage, it is the rehearsal hall that gives birth
to the feelings whose reverberations fly to us, stirring our hearts and
minds.
"Ms. Dobronravova, today you are one of the brightest stars in the
Kyiv Opera Theater. Your brilliant soprano is well known in Europe, where
the public comes specially 'to see Dobronravova' during the theater's tours.
But you, unlike some of your very young colleagues, have been totally unaffected
by the star syndrome. Perhaps what the artist needs is more ambition and
the ability to stay always on a pedestal?"
"The main thing is to be magnificent in what you do onstage. If you
are a master, you have nothing to squabble about with other performers.
I think all one has to do is go onstage and sing."
"And how did you, a Russian singer, find your way to Ukraine?"
"In 1982 in Saratov, there was a regular fair of the then Soviet Union's
conservatory graduates. It is there that the chief conductor at the Lviv
Opera Ihor Latsavych saw me and invited to his theater."
"But you did not know Ukrainian then, and now you speak so fluently!"
"I do not think this is a problem for singers. For we do sing, for example,
Verdi's operas in Italian or, say, Wagner's Lohengrin in German.
I immediately made a bold effort to speak Ukrainian. Everybody liked it,
though sometimes I raised laughter by my pronunciation. But when I went
to Canada in 1990, as part of a group of Kyiv opera singers, the Ukrainians
over there would say, 'Look, this is our Svitlanka from Galicia!'"
"This year you celebrate kind of a jubilee: ten years since you moved
from Lviv to Kyiv."
"Incidentally, I dedicate my recital at the Ukrainian National Opera
precisely to this occasion. But in general, I prepare once a year a new
program consisting of the works I have not performed before. For instance,
I sang the compositions of Rachmaninov and Liatoshynsky in April at the
Philharmonic Society. As to the Tchaikovsky evening, I have chosen scenes
from the two operas I do not perform in my theater: Yevgeny Onegin
and Iolantha. Preparing a new part, I always try to strictly follow
the author, not to impose my own interpretation of music but to put across
the nuances he fixed in the score."
"During the theater's recent tour of Europe, you sang the lead in
the opera Kateryna Izmailova. This newly-staged show, Iryna Molostova's
latest work, is so far known only to foreign audiences. So I would like
to ask how you felt in this music."
"Like a fish in water. Although Dmitry Shostakovych's music is considered
to be very difficult to perform, I felt unbelievable satisfaction. Maybe
because I was able to fuse completely with the heroine. I would also give
everything for love, for only with this feeling can a human being see flowers
bloom and grass turn green."
"What is the decisive feature of your character?"
"I know how to take pleasure from everything, even from what at first
glance seems unpleasant."







