Taras Shtonda’s Operatic Odyssey
Taras Shtonda, soloist with the National Opera of Ukraine, is at an age generally regarded as a bass’s creative prime. We his dedicated listeners have even more reason to feel proud about his operatic career at home and abroad.
The singer visited the Korean capital in early October to perform in concerts under the XXI Century Basses project, starring five singers from CIS countries, accompanied by a symphony and a chamber orchestra. Taras Shtonda had also prepared an interesting program.
Despite a tight concert schedule, the Ukrainian bass succeeds in adjusting it to the Bolshoi’s and Ukrainian National Opera’s repertoires. In September, Taras Shtonda actively performed at home in Kyiv. He gave a solo concert at the Philharmonic Society with Igor Palkin’s Symphony Orchestra. The program included twelve operatic arias. It is generally known that singing in an opera may be considerably easier than a whole concert, as in an opera a soloist has his part and sings in certain scenes as determined by the composer. Performing a concert program consisting of arias means displaying a great deal of endurance. Every aria is a small drama requiring maximum vocal effort.
Shtonda’s program was partially a tribute to the memory of another outstanding Ukrainian bass, Borys Hmyria. Taras Shtonda gave a solo chamber concert commemorating his centenary in August, at St. Andrew’s Church, and then performed at the singer’s jubilee soiree at the National Opera of Ukraine.
This season began with three appearances in Khovanshchina at the Bolshoi (particularly in a gala performance marking the opening of the Bolshoi’s season). For a month, Teatralnaya Ploshchad [Theater Sq.] in Moscow displayed a large (20 x 7 meters) poster reading in huge letters that Khovanshchina starred Larissa Dyadkova (Marfa) and Taras Shtonda (Docipheus). The Ukrainian singer is a soloist with Russia’s and Ukraine’s leading opera houses. He travels on many concert tours. In late September he appeared in a concert at the Ukrainian Home in Kyiv, together with colleagues from the Bolshoi, Italy, and St. Petersburg. Of no less importance for Shtonda’s career was his recent participation in the Prague Spring Festival where he performed Mussorgsky’s song cycle Bez Solntsa [Sunless] with the Russian Philharmonic and Bolshoi’s Chief Conductor Oleksandr Vedernikov, Jr.. The composer wrote the cycle for a bass and piano, but this time it was Edison Denisov’s orchestral arrangement. Shtonda was a great success and was invited to perform in the next festival in the spring of 2004.
Before long a CD with a complete recording of Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila at the Bolshoi will be released by the Dutch firm Pentaton (a Phillips branch), starring Boris Shtonda.
In fact, he enjoys special status at the Bolshoi, having been three times invited to sing in premieres of Russian operatic masterpieces. Every such performance is preceded by a vocal contest and the Ukrainian bass more often than not ends the winner. Moscow’s newspaper Vremya MN wrote, “Boris Shtonda has a unique bass, strongly reminiscent of Chaliapin’s in its saturated timbre and rich overtones.”
His next appearance on the Kyiv operatic stage will be mostly likely as Vladimir Galitsky in Prince Igor. Several premieres are scheduled. The legendary Georgian producer Robert Sturua plans to stage Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa at the Bolshoi with Shtonda as Kochubei. The premiere is scheduled for January. He will also sing as Boris Timofeevich in Shostakovich’s Katerina Izmailova at the Ukrainian National Opera in February. The opera will be staged by Dmytro Hnatiuk. This far from exhausts Taras Shtonda’s plans for the first half of the current season.
We can expect other pleasant surprises which he probably prefers to keep to himself now. His devotees received one such surprise recently when Shtonda appeared with solo programs including Schubert’s songs and Tchaikovsky’s romances, ones he had never previously performed but had long deliberated the idea and then quickly learned them in between operatic renditions. His innate musical talent and excellent memory place Shtonda somewhat aside from colleagues. He masters a part almost instantly, sometimes working in the initial stage even without an accompanist, learning the score using a method known to him alone. Listening to his immediate creative plans, one asks oneself, How will he find the time? Well, he always does, because it is his life and Providence invariably rewards him for this incredible dedication.
