Viktoria Lukianets

This singer ranks with the world’s opera stars who represent Ukraine. She is a soloist with the Shevchenko National Opera and the Vienna Opera. Her repertoire includes the leading parts of Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville; Violetta and Gilda in Verdi’s La Traviata and Rigoletto; Lucia, Adina, and the title part in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, L’elisir d’amore, and Maria Stuarda; the Queen of the Night and Donna Anna in Mozart’s Die Zauberfl te and Don Giovanni; Elvira in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri. She has performed on stage with such opera stars as Placido Domingo and Jos Carreras. The renowned Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli said he knew three truly great La Traviatas: Maria Callas, Teresa Stratas, and Viktoria Lukianets.

This information is in the public domain; one can find it on the Internet and on the prima donna’s website, yet there is also a Viktoria Lukianets few if any know about, with her daily schedule and household chores, with her philosophy, religion, and open heart. The Day was fortunate enough to have an exclusive interview with her during the Faith and Love benefit concert tour.

Ms. Lukianets, can we expect your solo concert in Ukraine, particularly in Kyiv, before long?

“I really hope so.”

B> Have any arrangements been made?

“We are living through hard times, nevertheless I hope to receive interesting business proposals so I can stage a concert in Kyiv. By the way, the arts are known to have received a special impetus in time of crisis. Remember the 1920s in the United States? During the Great Depression people needed music, fine arts, and poetry. Some of my German fans told me that at the late 1960s and the early 1970s Germany was also suffering an economic decline, but during this period the arts flourished.

“People tend to review their priorities in difficult conditions and return to genuine values. This is what our media should focus on, instead of scaring the living daylights out of us with this crisis. It will eventually end, of course. Also, we should remember that each of us lives only once. Living one day at a time, we are not making any drafts to be tidied up later.”

Some people believe — in Ukraine and across the world, as a matter fact — that big-time art is experiencing a difficult period and fewer and fewer people are attending operas and classical concerts. However, the younger generation seems to begin to come to operas more frequently. Is this to be attributed to some of the internationally acclaimed tenors who would sing at a stadium and perform folk songs as well as arias? I mean Pavarotti and Carreras?

“Singing with them was a great pleasure. I can only wonder why our Lord granted me the privilege. I couldn’t have dreamed of it, not even in my most beautiful dreams.

“Yevhenia Myroshnychenko was buried in Kyiv several days prior to my arrival in Ukraine. Let me tell you that the last of our Mohicans are dying, all those who at one time helped and raised talents such as Mykhailo Didyk, Olha Mykytenko, Volodymyr Hryshko, and Taras Shtonda. In fact, this is the time for our generation to step in. Too bad, few of those who taught us are among the living.

“I mentioned Yevhenia Myroshnychenko’s burial because I was a 12-year-old girl when I heard her in Glinka’s opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. The opera lasted for five hours, so I returned home after midnight and told my mom I wanted to be an opera singer.

“Regarding opera attendance, it’s full houses everywhere and lots of young people in the audience, especially now that productions have been modernized.”

You have extensive solo programs. How are they made? Your husband Yurii, Vienna Conservatory professor, must be lending you a helping hand?

“My solo programs are made in a variety of ways. Sometimes ideas are conceived by the organizers of a given project, as was the case with this concert tour. The stage director Serhii Arkhypchuk and I agreed that I would sing only religious songs, except for Oleksandr Bilash’s Zhuravka. Even then I tried to choose pieces of music seldom performed, like my favorite Bizet’s Agnus Dei. I heard it first performed by the celebrated Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli. I was presented with a 1929 gramophone and several records. Gigli’s part in Bizet’s opera was among them, and I was dumbfounded by it. I am very interested in finding new things.”

Your 20-year-old daughter also sings.

“She is into rock music; she must be fed up with classical music. Darusia is finishing her third year at Vienna University’s faculty of philosophy.”

What do you think one must do to achieve international acclaim?

“One must never dream of it. Rather, one must love one’s neighbor, so that one can share with one’s audience the music of one’s heart. Then international acclaim will come, following its own course.”

Are you received as an Austrian or Ukrainian singer?

“When they ask me what my homeland is, I say it is Ukraine; when they ask where my home is, I say it is in Vienna.”

Ms. Lukianets, we have been in contact these several days and my impression is that you accept and enjoy life the way it is, with all its ups and downs, rather than follow a glamorous style.

“I love life in all its diversity. I love people. I treasure my meetings with them. Life is everything: your child, the birds singing outside the window, the flowers you planted on the terrace, people who live next door and whom you invite over to share your freshly made pie, and our family travels. We have never rented out our apartment in Kyiv. This was there my little daughter learned to walk; this is where time seems at a standstill. We return to this place as we do to warm memories.

“As for the media-imposed stereotypes concerning female performers, the way they look, and their lifestyle, I can’t complain, I’m in good shape, I’m in demand, but what about all those women denied such privileges? What have they done to deserve such a fate? Do we all of us want to be the same? I have always regarded a fifty- or sixty-year-old woman as a maturely attractive individual, one embellished with life experience and wisdom. By the way, every Ukrainian has always been raised to respect elderly people.

“Now take our younger generation. These young women read glossy magazines and then subject themselves to all kinds of stupid diets, so they can look like international models, only to discover later that their legs and breasts have been modified using the computer. You first look not at her legs, hips, and breasts, but at her eyes that are the mirror of her soul.”

You have metaphorically referred to the Faith and Love concerts as a prayer. Why?

“When performing in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Lviv, and Kyiv, I once again realized that nothing can change our native land. My fellow countrymen form a special kind of audience — friendly, sincere, and cordial. I have spent 15 years living in Vienna, but these people remember me. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. In between rehearsals and concerts, I would stroll down the central streets in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, and Lviv. I would walk up to trees, hug them, and touch the earth to partake of their energy. This helped me with my travels across the world.

“I am an Eastern Orthodox believer and I had my daughter baptized in an Eastern Orthodox church. I believe, however, that there is one God and that God is love. This is something that should unite all of us. We sang for the construction of a temple. When the construction of the UGCC Resurrection Cathedral is completed in Kyiv, people will come and offer up prayers, thus consecrating this house of God in their own way. This will be a blessing for the Ukrainian land.”