In memoriam of Lviv’s Picasso
The memory of the outstanding scene designer, people’s artist of Ukraine, laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize, senior artist of Lviv National Opera Yevhen Lysyk (1930–91) is being celebrated through an exhibition held in Lviv.
The exhibition, located in the National Museum (prospect Svobody, 20), is dedicated to the 80th birth anniversary of the great artist. The exposition, which covers five halls, presents Lysyk’s work of the 1960s through 1990s: painting, graphics, and draft scenery for theatrical performances.
Lysyk created scene designs for 76 performances. The most famous of those are: Spartacus staged by Aram Khachaturian, Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev, Esmeralda by Cesare Pugni, Nutcracker by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Creation of the World by Andrey Petrov, The Golden Ring by Borys Liatoshynsky, Tannhauser by Richard Wagner, Don Juan by Wolfgang Mozart, and Otello by Giuseppe Verdi. Lysyk put on his performances not only in Lviv but also in Kyiv, Donetsk, Minsk (Belarus), Leningrad and Sverdlovsk (Russia), Warsaw (Poland), Skopje (Macedonia), and Ankara (Turkey). Theater critics call those performances masterpieces cha-racterized by their philosophical tone, rich imagery, fine understanding of the musical score of the play, and impressive emotionality.
A great number of people gathered at the opening of the exposition: artists, theater critics, writers, photographers, and students of the Arts Academy. The speakers noted that Lysyk never had such a huge exposition during his life, or even after his death. They also thanked Lysyk’s wife Oksana Zinchenko and his daughter Anna for preserving the treasures of the scene designer and for organizing this exposition.
“Many artists presented their work in our opera,” the general director of the theater Tadei Eder told The Day, “but Lysyk was very special. There is no substitute for him in Ukraine or on the territory of the former USSR because he brought up people in the style of nobility. You would probably remember that when after an overture the curtain was drawn up the audience would burst into applause — the scenery created by Lysyk was brilliant.”
The academician Volodymyr Ovsiichuk called Lysyk a Picasso-level genius. He also mentioned that he didn’t miss even one of his plays: “We would run to the theater for Lysyk’s performance and would live through the language he spoke.” The art critic also remembered the words of the composer Aram Khachaturian who came to the premier of his Spartacus: “If Lysyk would need the music changed I’d do it for him.”
