Night of the stars in Kyiv

Viktoria Lukianets, Valentyn Pyvovarov, Olha Mykytenko, Volodymyr Kuzmenko, and Marian Talaba are stars that rarely grace the stage of the National Opera of Ukraine. They may be described as Ukraine’s opera ambassadors, as they continue to represent Ukrainian operatic art while performing on the world’s most prestigious stages. Despite their packed concert tour schedules, they remember Ukraine and visit their homeland, if only rarely. Kyiv is where they began their ascent to the operatic Olympus, and where all of them are affectionately remembered and always given a warm welcome.

Demonstrating their considerable talents and professional mastery during the concert “I’ll Return to Ukraine,” the singers performed classical numbers, including popular arias, works by foreign composers seldom performed in Ukraine, and Ukrainian folk songs and romances. The audience enjoyed every note, sound, word, and phrase.

Olha Mykytenko is a new, almost unfamiliar, yet overwhelming personality. Not only has she changed her appearance — for the better, after cutting her luxurious long hair short — her voice is now more polyphonic and marked by a multitude of overtones. She flew to Kyiv from Lyons, where she sang in Eugene Onegin. She is combining concert tours with on-the-job training, attending vocal classes. She told The Day that she takes these classes every day. Mykytenko has contracts with a number of opera houses and recently she toured Hamburg and Berlin.

“Now I sing on the world’s best stages, something that I could never even dream about before. I try to keep pace with new operas. It’s too bad that the Ukrainian public knows very little about current opera trends, quests, and experiments. I would love to try at least to lift this curtain a little for them. I am preparing a new solo program that includes works seldom performed, like Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Dvorak’s Mermaid, which I performed during the concert in Kyiv or works that are totally unknown to the Ukrainian public. I would like to perform this program in Kyiv, probably sometime next year.”

Mykytenko will play the role of Tatiana in Eugene Onegin on March 2. Opera buffs will have another opportunity to hear this young prima donna. The day after her performance in Kyiv she will fly abroad, so her devoted fans will most likely have to wait a very long time to hear her again.

Viktoria Lukianets flew to Kyiv from Rome. “I sang Richard Strauss’ last compositions there and Vatican Radio recorded my concert. I am eager to familiarize the Ukrainian public with his charming music and Hermann Hesse’s beautiful lyrics. I’m happy I can do this. Imagine! Forty minutes of singing! I recently gave concerts in Vienna. I sang Rosalinde’s czardas in Die Fledermaus in Vienna and then in Kyiv.

You know, I don’t agree with those who say that operetta is a light genre. It is anything but light. I think that I amazed my audience by making an appearance as a new theatrical character. Opera, however, remains uppermost on my mind. There is something very important I have to accomplish; I must prepare for a premiere in a month’s time. It is Wolf-Ferrari’s Sly [based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew] scheduled to premiere in Nice this April and I’ll be singing the lead role. The rest of my concert schedule is so tight that I won’t be able to have a solo concert in Kyiv this year, much as I would like to. But I can assure my fans that I will come as soon as I have a gap in my schedule. Although I have been living abroad for a few years, my heart is in Kyiv. My parents and friends live here; here is where I can recharge; I feel more comfortable here than anywhere else in the world,” she told The Day.

Says Maria Stefiuk, soloist with the National Opera of Ukraine: “For the second time the concert known as ‘I’ll Return to Ukraine’ has gathered the stars of opera and ballet stars. During the concert we heard top-notch singers, who would do honor to any opera house anywhere in the world. You know, while I was listening to my celebrated colleagues, I found myself asking: “Oh Lord, why couldn’t we sing in Vienna or Milan before?’ It’s good that the times have changed, so we can perform in various countries. You see, when you keep performing in the same company, your world outlook becomes limited. In our profession it is important to keep communicating with various musicians, singers, conductors, and stage directors — with various cultures, in a variety of languages. During the concert I could see the huge progress made by such young singers as Marian Talaba and Olha Mykytenko. In a couple of years both have changed very much for the better. Mykytenko has developed that inner attractiveness and rid herself of provincialism. Her vocal renditions were gorgeous. The tenor Volodymyr Kuzmenko gave an excellent performance. The opera star Valentyn Pyvovarov was his inimitable sparkling self, of course. With the passing years, his dramatic talent and singular bass appear to be reaching higher levels of perfection. I enjoyed the concert immensely. I rejoiced in every performance like a member of the audience, and I was nervous every time a singer had to reach a high note; I kept my breath in unison with her.”

The concert featured conductor Oleksii Baklan and performances by a handful of ballet soloists of the National Opera of Ukraine — Olena Filipieva, Natalia Matsak, and Andrii Hura — who also tour abroad frequently. During the concert finale, “Prayer for Ukraine,” from a scene from Hulak-Artemovsky’s A Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube, was performed by Volodymyr Kuzmenko, the National Opera Choir, and the Philharmonic Society’s Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mykola Diadiura. I was sad when the concert ended because I knew that the next day all those stars would be leaving Ukraine.

“We watched performances by people who are ambassadors of Ukrainian art. We in the audience marveled at the concert, at our talented performers. The posters read ‘I’ll Return to Ukraine,’ but this is not absolutely correct. Deep in their hearts they have never left Ukraine. They have always been true Ukrainians,” said Mykola Zhulynsky, cultural adviser to the Ukrainian president and member of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.