National Opera launches its 138th season
According to a long-standing tradition, the National Theater of Opera and Ballet launched its new season with Ukrainian classics, including Mykola Lysenko’s Taras Bulba. Volodymyr Kozhukhar conducted the orchestra, with the Kharkiv-based singer Mykhailo Oliynyk performing the main role. Possessing a melodious and resonant voice, the singer managed to express all the subtleties of this dramatic role. His appearance was a favor to the theater management, who needed someone to stand in for his ailing colleague Mykola Shopsha, who usually sings the part of Taras Bulba on the Kyiv stage. Oliynyk fit in perfectly with the team of performers, including Roman Maiboroda (Stepan), Stepan Fitsych (Andriy), Taras Shtonda (Kyrdiaha), Lidia Zabiliasta (Maryltsia), Liudmyla Yurchenko (Nastia), and other leading National Opera vocalists.
Last Friday there was a full house for the legendary opera A Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky. With Ivan Hamkalo conducting, the main parts were sung by Bohdan Taras (Karas), Olena Kliain (Odarka), Pavlo Pryimak (Andriy), Iryna Dats (Oksana), and Mykhailo Koval (the Sultan). Many foreign visitors, who were in the theater on both evenings, were in raptures. One drawback was that set changes were slightly delayed owing to the scenery, which were a little worse for wear. Off stage you could hear the sound of hammering: stage hands were mending the scenery on the go.
Judging by the start of the new season, the theater is revising its strategies. It is no secret that Ukrainian classics have not been seen much in the capital in the past 14 years. The repertoire was comprised of three operas and two ballets (A Forest Song and Lileya) by Ukrainian composers, which were staged for effect only, while billboards mainly advertised world classics. Our theater was national in name only. Taras Bulba was usually shown once a year — at the beginning or the end of a season. A Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube and Natalka Poltavka were very seldom staged. For a long time there have been no performances of Ukrainian composers’ works. Old productions were slipping into decline, and young performers were kept at bay. It is high time to revise the old versions. It looks as though last season’s premiere, the oratorio-ballet Kyivan Frescoes by Ivan Karabyts, removed a huge boulder that was standing in the way of our contemporary artists trying to make it to the Kyiv stage.
The theater’s producer Dmytro Hnatiuk says that he last staged Taras Bulba in 1992. Production designer Yuriy Bilonenko used sketches by the well-known artist Anatoliy Petrytsky for his stage designs. The producer not only updated D. Smolych production but introduced new scenes, such as the Cossack dances in Act Three. Hnatiuk was the producer of A Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube in 1998 and Natalka Poltavka in 1989.
Hnatiuk told The Day that this season the National Opera is going to be showing updated versions of Ukrainian classics and some new material. At the theater’s request, Vitaliy Kyreiko has composed the opera The Boyar’s Wife based on Lesia Ukrainka’s play Boyarynia. The premiere is scheduled for the second half of December. Also in the works is a lavish production of Myroslav Skoryk’s Moses on the occasion of Ivan Franko’s 150th birth anniversary. The repertoire also includes some original ballets. Composer Mykhailo Chemberdzhi has written a new piece on the problems of young people (so far untitled), while Yuriy Shevchenko has finished Papa Carlo’s Violin, a ballet based on the popular Italian fairy tale The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.
Classical foreign works are also in the troupe’s focus. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, the theater will showcase the ballet Viva, Mozart! set to the music of the opera Le Nozze di Figaro. At the end of the season the Kyiv stage will present Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut for the first time.
The National Opera is also planning to go on tour. In November and December the ballet troupe is going to Mexico and the US to show The Nutcracker, Giselle, and Sleeping Beauty. Later some of the dancers will perform in Spain and Portugal. A traditional tour of European countries is scheduled for March. The Kyivans intend to stage the operas Turandot and Boris Godunov and the ballets Cinderella and Viva, Mozart! In April Ukrainian ballet dancers will be visiting Turkey with Don Quixote, and in August our artists will perform in the opera Carmen at a music festival in Germany. The final destination is Japan, where our opera singers will be performing for the first time. They have chosen their finest productions — Aida and Turandot — for their debut in the “Land of the Rising Sun.”
