The Shining Duke
News about the monument to Anatoly Solovyanenko in Donetsk caused many to feel joy, but there was also controversy. It was hard to visualize one of our most popular singers cast in bronze. Also, not every monument serves the designated purpose of preserving and handing down the memory of the celebrated prototype. After all we have a long and bad tradition of erecting monuments meant to immortalize totalitarian ambitions and little corporals. And there are far too many monuments as sad reminders that we do not always give outstanding people their due while they are still with us.
Just as “a poet in Russia is more than a poet,” in Ukraine being a singer reaches over and above the boundaries of art, becoming a public, nationwide phenomenon. Through songs the Ukrainian character reveals its true scope, and so does the beauty of the language. Starting with the sage Boyan cited in The Lay of the Host of Ihor and for centuries thereafter the best Ukrainian singers have united the people, igniting their hearts with the national idea which modern politicians like to wax philosophical about so. Nor was a coincidence that the decades preceding the birth of the Ukrainian state marked the emergence of singers whose talent was a true gift of God. Their contribution to the cause of independence is still to be fully comprehended; it has not been duly appreciated. Those who understood their meaning for the people basked in their glory and did their best to make the most of it. The old worker-and-woman-collective-farmer alliance was replaced by the politician-singer campaign duet. Is this why we have such scarce true vocal talent and such a magnitude of dim and short-lived political stars that give us neither light nor warmth? Anatoly Solovyanenko never sided with any political alliances and always remained a singer of his people. He was popularly known as the Ukrainian Nightingale [from the last name Solovyanenko, from solovei, nightingale]. His grandparents and their parents also had good voices. The monument in Donetsk is known as the Duke of the Coal Miners originates from an article in the Izvestiya, titled “Duke of the Coal Miners” about Solovyanenko’s debut in Rigoletto’s Verdi at the Kyiv Opera on November 22, 1963. In fact, it was his first appearance on stage.
Donetsk is his “little fatherland,” many things here recall of the earliest stage in his life and vocal career. He was born and spent childhood in Peremoha, a settlement on one of the city outskirts. His father Borys Solovyanenko worked at the Pershotravneva Coal Mine. In his third year at the Donetsk Polytechnic Institute, he would go down the pit as part of his mining practice. After graduation, he stayed at the institute, as a teacher with the descriptive geometry chair. It was here, at 78 Artem Street that he first met his professor, Oleksandr Korobeichenko. It was his instruction that made Anatoly Solovyanenko a great vocalist. He was invited to the Kyiv Opera and sent to study in Italy. Wherever he went, he never forgot his first professor.
The statue was mounted in the public garden facing the Donetsk Opera, now bearing the singer’s name. He often appeared on this stage before happy audiences. His first operatic part was the Duke in Rigoletto, this is probably why the statue portrays him wearing the costume. People often visit, asking about the material and why the statue shines so. A young couple did not know about Solovyanenko. This is nothing strange, considering that our television channels are packed with politics, often leaving little room for artists. A woman said she had known Anatoly Solovyanenko as a teacher of descriptive geometry. She did not like the statue because it shone too brightly (the sky was overcast that day). I examined the monument, looking at it from all possible angels, and still could not grasp the authors’ idea. Perhaps they wanted to show his sparkling talent in the truest sense of the word. Or maybe it was a symbol of the shining gold of the Ukrainian voice, or all that shining was to stress the operatic hero masculine charms that left the smitten Gilda no chance.
Be it as it may, people constantly visit the monument, bringing flowers, sharing impressions and ideas about art, joyous memories about the singer’s performances; and some learn about him for the first time. The Duke leaves no one indifferent.
