Dumka Choir’s European Tour
The Dumka Choir performed Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia on October 13 at the National Philharmonic Society, as part of the Volodymyr Krainev Welcomes Festival. It was the celebrated choir’s first public appearance in Ukraine after a concert tour lasting about two months in France, Holland, and Germany. Judging by foreign press reviews, the tour was a great success. Below, the choir’s Artistic Director Yevhen Savchuk has details and shares the choir’s plans.
THE FRENCH MOTIF
“During the tour we worked very fruitfully with three leading orchestras — the national ones of France and the Netherlands, and the symphony orchestra of Ukraine. Dumka was invited to the prestigious French international music festival for the second time, and it was held at La Chaise- Dieu for the 36th time. Every year its organizers try to diversify the program. Our program was very extensive and was a great strain on the singers. We performed a cappella classical and modern Ukrainian music — Orthodox religious and secular compositions — and Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil which is very popular in Europe. We sang Dvorak’s Requiem with the symphony orchestra of the Ukrainian Philharmonic Society (directed by Mykola Diadiura), with the Kyiv Opera’s leading vocalists Valentyn Pyvovarov, Svitlana Dobronravova, Liudmyla Yurchenko, and Oleksandr Diachenko doing the solo parts. We sang with the French national orchestra (we had prepared Saint-Saens’s Requiem specially for the festival, and I hope we’ll soon perform it in Ukraine). We also performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the organizers’ special request. This particular composition is considered Dumka’s calling card.”
AMSTERDAM IMPRESSIONS
After France the choir headed for Holland. Mr. Savchuk says the tour of that country culminated in the performance of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony.
“Not every country can manage this truly epochal composition,” continues Yevhen Savchuk. “Mahler wrote in the score that the symphony is meant for a thousand performers, with eight soloists. Precisely that happened in Amsterdam. Since the composer wanted two choirs, the big adult one and a smaller children’s choir, we had invited our younger colleagues from Ukrainian Radio. The boys’ choir consisted of three groups (two from Dresden and one from Amsterdam). The best vocalists representing various schools of the world did the solo parts. The national symphony orchestra of the Netherlands was conducted by the famous maestro Hartmut Haenchen. The Concertgebouw audience was packed with hardly standing room left. After the final chord, an ovation began and lasted for 15 minutes. Many of our performers said later they were very excited; for the first time the symphony was performed on such a scope, in full splendor.
“Tremendous preparatory work had been carried out before that concert in Holland. In June, Kyiv had been visited by Oliver Weder, assistant with the national orchestra of the Netherlands. An excellent conductor, he had practiced with the Mariyinsky Theater. He knows Russian, so we could communicate without an interpreter. During rehearsals he placed the accents and ascertained positions which we would require during the concert in Amsterdam. He was satisfied by our cooperation and this helped us quickly adjust to the Concertgebouw audience. It should be noted that all performers showed real professionalism. Remarkably, the children (150 in all) worked with precision and coordination during the rehearsals. In the intermissions they were ordinary German and Dutch boys, but onstage they were like adults, showing a remarkable sense of responsibility.
“I must point out that conductor Hartmut Haenchen is a splendid musician. He spent sixteen years conducting two celebrated companies: the national symphony orchestra of the Netherlands and the orchestra of the Amsterdam Opera. The eight symphony was his farewell to the symphony orchestra, as he would from then on work only for the opera. I might as well add that the Netherlands orchestra is unique. The composer had worked with it, he is respected in Amsterdam and they hold Mahler festivals.”
GERMAN-DUTCH MELODIES
“Mahler’s Eighth was performed in Dresden practically the same way as in Holland, except that the Amsterdam boys’ choir was replaced by a German one. I have long years of experience, but I must say that the boys’ choir captivated me. Our was a charity concert, with the proceeds to be spent on the restoration of the Dresden Opera after the flood. We performed on the square and everything was telecast live by the leading channels from various countries. Mahler’s Eighth Symphony turned out to be the focal event. The tickets (quite expensive) had been sold out a month before, but a lot of people wanted to attend who couldn’t. We were happy to read and hear praising comments and reviews. One of the critics called Dumka “a representative of musical diplomacy.”
After the concert in Dresden the choir returned to Amsterdam. I was very worried. The performers were tired after a tour lasting over a month, but we still had to give an a cappella concert. In fact, we were the first to appear at the Konzertgebau with that program and it would become a special landmark in our career. Singing a cappella (without accompaniment) is very difficult. In the first part of the concert we did Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil and dedicated the second part to Ukrainian music, including arrangements of Kozak and Yatsynevich’s songs, works by Stankovych, Zubytsky, Rakov, and Leontovych. The audience responded quite enthusiastically. Many heard Ukrainian music for the first time. I, as a choirmaster and with many years of professional experience, enjoyed every minute of it and will long remember that warm responsive atmosphere.”
Mr. Savchuk also says the tour was a serious test for the choir. In addition to complex concert programs demanding every bit of Dumka’s vocal skill, there was also exhausting travel. Transportation was provided by a Kyiv firm, and we all know the quality of domestic service. The buses would break down, and the people would reach their destination dead tired. Foreign concert arrangements were faultless, including comfortable hotel/bungalow accommodations. But the choir could not afford interpreters, so a varying degree of English was used, aided by dictionaries. Nor could Dumka hire a television film crew, so evidence of choir’s triumphant tour is found in amateur video cassettes, newspaper clippings, posters, brochures, and photos.
SURPRISES FOR KYIV
Dumka is well known and respected in Europe. The choir had hardly returned to Kyiv when several invitations for next year’s tour arrived. Foreign audiences are good, but the domestic ones should not be ignored, either. Dumka is working on a Christmas project at the philharmonic society. It will be a surprise for the Kyiv devotees. Over many years in business the choir has performed most versatile music. Yevhen Savchuk decided to shape a program consisting of choral scenes from foreign operas, operettas, and musicals (e.g., Verdi, Handel, Bizet, Borodin, Mascagni, Strauss, Roger, and Gershwin). Ukrainian pop star Oleksandr Ponomariov’s participation is being negotiated.
Dumka will present Rachmaninoff’s Bells in January, first in Ukraine and then in Denmark where the choir will take part in a traditional and modern music festival. Rehearsals of Czeslaw Grabowski’s pieces are underway. Incidentally, the composer will attend the festival in Denmark as an orchestra conductor. The foreign impresario has asked Dumka to perform Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia and take part in a program consisting of songs, duets, and choral numbers from Verdi’s Aida. This will be Dumka’s fourth appearance at the festival in the past four years. Somehow no concert itineraries lead to Ukraine’s immediate neighbor in the east. The Year of Ukraine is drawing to a close in Russia, yet Dumka is not among the performers. Why? What are the selection criteria there?
TENORS DYING OUT LIKE MAMMOTHS
Yevhen Savchuk believes that daily practicing keeps the choir at a high professional level and he maintains a steel hard discipline: rehearsals five times a week, except weekends. Vocalists are on rotation, so as to keep Dumka supplied with fresh blood. New ones are selected by audition. There are very many applicants. There have different periods in the choir’s history. Gone are the times when singers quit as soon as they could, seeking a better living abroad. Some of the former choir members are in America. They have to sing in churches and complain that they were promised whole mountains of gold by visiting preachers, then found themselves paid so little they can hardly make ends meet. They would like to return to Dumka if they could.
Mr. Savchuk says retiring singers is a great problem, especially those that have spent practically all their creative lives with Dumka.
“There are also local problems,” he admits. “There has always been a shortage of tenors, operatic as well as choral. There is even a joke: tenors are dying out like mammoths. Our tenor section is one of the best [in Ukraine], but we have a big problem with basses, especially in the central and lower registers. We need intelligent, thinking performers, rather than those who can just open their mouths and let out a deafening roar. One must know how to join one’s sonorous voice in that of the choir. There are only a handful of such vocalists.”
Yevhen Savchuk’s cherished dream is performing Stankovych’s Third Symphony I Confirm Myself based on Pavlo Tychyna’s verse. Dumka was the first to familiarize its audiences with this composition. It caused quite some reverberations and was repeated by practically all professional choirs, and then it had somehow sunk into oblivion. He believes that it is one of Stankovych’s best creations and marks an attainment of modern Ukrainian music. The choir will perform an updated version of the symphony, elaborated by the composer.
Dumka boasts a unique and varied repertoire, but few recordings. Before long they will record a cappella renditions of religious music. Their CDs with Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil and Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy are on sale abroad. In Ukraine, academic music has no priority and is seldom recorded. The choirmaster is pained to recall how much excellent music remains unrecorded.
“Lesia Dychko’s Chervona Kalyna, for example. It was written to old folk lyrics, it is a Ukrainian musical masterpiece,” says Mr. Savchuk. “The trouble is, there are practically no television programs dedicated to classical music; they seldom broadcast concerts by academic performing groups. Our screens and air are jammed with cheap pop hits and countless shows. No programs about outstanding composers, poets, or actors. UT-1’s Culture series is lost in the haze, broadcast for several hours on a weekday. The impression is that this program is just for appearance’s sake, and the officials in charge do not realize that such programs are badly needed.
“Last year, Dumka performed Stankovych’s Lay of the Host of Ihor in Warsaw with Sirenko’s National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. After the concert, an impresario came over and proposed to record a soundtrack for Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s motion picture, Quo Vadis. Doing it took us just a day. It turned out well. Just as the film appeared on the public screen, they released an album and CDs with our recording. When the film was presented at the Molodist Festival in Ukraine, the organizing committee told everything about the producer, noting even that Kawalerowicz’s relatives lived in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, but not a word about the Dumka soundtrack. That’s how we treat our own talent. In Poland, the approach is totally different. They were flattered to have a Hollywood production made on their soil and that Polish performers were also invited. We were asked to make another, this time a concert recording. It will take place at the Wroclaw festival next September.
“Dumka has a tight schedule and enjoys a good international reputation. We have a solid highly professional team. We set ourselves demanding creative tasks, and we know that we will carry them out.”
