After a hiatus of eight years, our renowned compatriot, people’s artist of the USSR, and former soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine Anatoly Kocherha who now lives in Vienna and sings in the most prestigious theaters of the world, was performing at the stage of the Lysenko Hall of Columns.
Anatoly Ivanovych, why haven’t you returned to Kyiv for such a long time?
This was linked with a number of circumstances. First of all, due to my packed tour schedule, which is planned several years in advance. The issue is that we, singers of the former Soviet Union, have great difficulties in getting accustomed to the pace of work abroad. And if you have got into the whirlpool and have been lucky to join the pack, when you are invited to participate in performances and concerts, there are practically no pauses. I have been invited to sing in Ukraine quite often, but it is necessary to contact me at least a year in advance in order for me to arrange my plans.
Is it possible that we will soon see you at the stage of the National Opera?
Petro Chupryna, general director of the National Opera of Ukraine, and I studied together at the conservatory. I know absolutely nothing of him as an administrator but I have heard a great deal of praise concerning his organizational talents from my former colleagues. Maybe we will be able to agree and I will sing on the Kyiv stage. We have to discuss with him various details, to reconcile the plans of the theater with my personal plans, but so far it is premature to speak about it. I heard that our actors that perform abroad are persuaded to perform on a charity basis. I have never been a Santa Claus, nor a Father Frost. I am a performer, during my life I have given a lot of presents and have sung such a number of patronage concerts that now I can put forward my own terms. As to performance in Kyiv, I am busy until August 30, 2001 so far. And September is the beginning of the theater seasons in all the theaters of the world. Next autumn I want very much to bring to Kyiv for the anniversary of Babyn Yar the 13th symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich, to be directed by Mstislav Rostropovich.
You can compare how the preparation for performances is done abroad and at the National Opera of Ukraine. Are there many differences?
Foreign performances differ from ours, first of all, in their mobility, thoroughness, discipline, and accuracy of implementation of the task at hand by the stage director. There are practically no delays and breaks in the schedule. This is the major difference. For example, I planned performances of Don Carlos and Falstaff during the Easter festival in Salzburg together with Claudio Abbado, and in the summer festival the same performances with Lovi Mazol. I remember perfectly the times when I worked at the National Opera, for twenty years of my creative work are connected with Kyiv. We always spoke about the planned economy, but there was nothing of the kind. I can only wish for words not to differ from actions in our country. Without boasting, I will tell you that I have the contracts signed until 2003, though there are also propositions for the later term as well. In 2005 the Metropolitan Opera intends to stage Boris Godunov. Americans remember me, while the Kyivans seem to have begun to forget. At least I have received no concrete propositions to participate in new performances in Ukraine.
You have sung Boris Godunov so many times in different opera performances. Which rendition do you like most?
Actually, I have sung Boris Godunov over three hundred times in different interpretations, in particular I also happened to work with Andrei Tarkovsky. I cannot put forward any single version because I like them all. For me there is absolutely no difference whether I work in modern clothes or in the costumes from the sixteenth century, the main thing is for the director to preserve the spirit of the work, because each author of performance sees it in his own way. For example, in the Salzburg version effected by the Italian orchestra director Claudio Abbado the performance is staged in a modern interpretation. It came off very interesting and not at all trivial. My Boris was as a general secretary in a three-piece suit with a tie. To tell the truth, in the coronation scene I had still a mantle on. I was holding a scepter and a statehood symbol in my hands and the tsar’s crown on my head. And then, according to the performance, I was dressed in a modern suit. The staging effected by the director Vernike was in the spirit of our time. Claudio Abbado went into each and every detail. He was directing but was doing it in a very delicate and unimposing way. You cannot imagine what kind of a person he is. Claudio is just wonderful, I consider him my God. We have been friends for over ten years. I am grateful to destiny that I have met not only an outstanding musician but also a person of tremendous soul. Abbado has helped me a lot in my life, and not only me but my whole family.
Anatoly Ivanovych, be honest, do you often argue with directors?
I prefer to cooperate with them rather than argue, although, sometimes, indeed, the truth is born in argument. I try not to cause conflict, because we are doing one thing, everybody is trying to make the opera to be as good as it possibly can be. Each performance is like a newly constructed building, and each participant can only decorate it by adding details.
You are one of the first Ukrainian actors who went to work abroad. Your latest performances at the Kyiv stage were Faust and The Barber of Seville. How did you adapt abroad?
My adaptation to life abroad wasn’t easy. I was lucky to be engaged for the first six years by Vienna Staatsoper for a number of performances directed by Abbado. During this time I became known not only in Austria but also in other European states. Now my interests are represented by impresarios in various countries. Today I am free and can select the theater and performances where I myself want to work. This is not easy. I have to travel a lot. I come home only to change suitcases and clothes.
You started to sing at the National opera when Huliayev, Miroshnychenko, Solovyanenko, and Rudenko were dominating the Kyiv stage. What are your impressions from that period?
I sang The Barber of Seville and Yevgeny Onegin with Yuri Huliayev. By the way, in the latter I debuted on the Kyiv stage in the part of Gremin, and Yura was playing the part of Onegin. Performances with Yevhen Miroshnychenko and Bela Rudenko were always very trying for me. Both are wonderful partners and performers. My God, how long ago it was! Although I am not old: I am only 51. I was lucky to sing at one stage with Mykola Gyaurov, famous Bulgarian bass. We met in the years of our youth. He is a very famous singer, but in real life he is like a little child. We sang with him in Khovanshchyna and Don Carlos. All these singers are modest people and wonderful actors. With Placido Domingo all my family has made friends. Slava Rostropovich and I are also friends. His wife Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya was present at the rehearsals and the premiere. We have been friends ever since. In November we are going to meet again, but this time in Munich. Slava wants to stage Ekaterina Izmailova by Dmitry Shostakovich and proposed me the part of Boris Timofiyovich Izmailov. In his version the performance will be called Lady Macbeth of Mzen.
You have been on probation at La Scala. Do you consider yourself to be a representative of the Italian school?
I am a representative of the Slavic school. I graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory under professors Rimma Andriyivna Razumova and Zoya Yuhymivna Liftman. Incidentally, she was present at the concert at the philharmonic despite her age. It was they who laid the basis of my career as a vocalist, and in Milan I had graduate studies. Before I got to La Scala I had to pass a big selective competition at the Grand Theater. Out of one hundred applicants only four went to Milan. There was no finishing one’s voice there. If it was there, then it was there. At La Scala I learned Italian well, because in Kyiv we only passed through it, passed our exams, and quickly forgot it. The parts were just learned by rote. I started from the basics: grammar. In Milan I was without an interpreter, but already in a few months after intensive practice I felt that started to understand my interlocutors, and then I started speaking Italian myself. At La Scala I came to study to a teacher, but she said that she couldn’t help me with anything, and that’s why our learning only consisted of singing out. For me the very atmosphere of the theater was very important, the possibility to attend practically all the performances. It was then when I met the orchestra director Claudio Abbado as well as singers Luciano Pavarotti and Nikolai Giaurov.
Anatoly Ivanovych, where is your home today?
Where my family is. Where my wife Linochka, daughter Yulechka, mother Alla are. Today they are in Vienna, on September 20 we go to London, on October 7 to Paris, then to Munich and Berlin. We are always together.
Every performer individually approaches the preparation for the performance. Do you have any secrets?
There are no secrets. Some vocalists keep silence to save their vocal cords, others switch to household chores; they saw, drill, or carve something. Driven by nerves, I can wash all the dishes myself instead of a dishwasher or wipe the furniture; sometimes I take my carpenter tools and make something. If the energy is in you it has to come out. Because if you restrain it you will short circuit. I let off steam, and I have enough energy then to fulfill myself onstage.
Why do you have no new records in Ukraine?
This question is not to me but to the Ukrainian representatives who take up audio recording. Maybe there is no recording tape or paper, but the main thing is there is no desire. It’s hard to say why. When I lived and worked in Kyiv I was recorded but very little. Now I would like to use those records to leave the memory of myself in my fatherland. In the archives of Ukrainian Radio tapes are preserved with me singing old romances with orchestras under the leadership of Chornokondratenko and Kozachkov.
In the West companies cooperate with singers by inviting them to make a specific record of a composer or musical work. It is the orchestra director who selects most often. For example, Claudio Abbado decided to record Falstaff and invited me to his team. Due to him we recorded Boris Godunov without any clips. I am proud of the fact that after Fedor Shalyapin I was the second Slavic singer to record this opera. At Claudio’s initiative I started singing Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death for the first time in my life. Previously this cycle was not in my repertoire. I had to prepare seriously. I will not conceal that I worried very much. Our premiere took place at the Berlin Philharmonic. In a month the record was made at the Sony Classical studio. I was very glad that this work has been marked with a gold medal as the best record of the year.
In the opera Ekaterina Izmailova you had to sing not only in different versions but even to perform different parts.
Already in Kyiv Opera Theater I was singing the part of the Old Galley Slave in
Ekaterina Izmailova. And abroad during the tour in the Bastille Opera Theater I had to sing two parts at once: Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov and the Chief of Police. I recall that moment with awe. The thing was that my partner got sick. We held rehearsals with two teams of performers. According to the contract I sang there 23 performances in a quite short period. I want to tell you at once that such loads always have an effect. I had to rest for two months afterward. At La Scala something similar happened to me when I had to urgently replace the actor who played the part of the Chief of Police, and besides to sing my own part of Izmailov. The complexity is that by the pitch range and the character of personages these are absolutely different parts. However, sometimes you have to be a juggler. To tell the truth, for the voice such experiments are horrible. Now if I have nightmares, as a rule, I see myself split in two onstage.
There were rapturous comments by Herbert von Karajan about you that have survived. Why didn’t you ever work together?
You forget the time that we lived in. I did not even know that for seventeen years Karajan was inviting me to sing with his orchestra. One minght say I acted like a pig, because I did not answer any of his invitations. Frankly speaking, I did not have any idea that they existed. First I learned about it from the maestro during a chance meeting. So I did not manage to work with Karajan thanks to our Soviet regime. I was just not let out. Afterwards I learned that I had not answered 190 invitations. In 1987 I signed the contract with Claudio Abbado, and according to this contract I had no right to perform anywhere except the Vienna Staatsoper. However, having received another invitation from Karajan from Salzburg, I addressed Claudio but he said, “You will go only with me.” It appeared that I again found myself paralyzed and somebody else was making decisions for me. That’s why after six seasons I decided not to bind myself with the margins of a single theater and now I sign short-term agreements to participate in certain performances and concerts. Practically just before Karajan’s death we met again, but he was already ill and moved with difficulty. In fact, his wife is one of the sponsors of all the Salzburg festivals. Incidentally, the fact that I started performing abroad happened due to the assistance of one kind friend. I will not name him in order for him not to have problems, for he is now an acting diplomat.
And is there any recipe from Kocherha for the voice?
To be in a good physical shape. I do gymnastics and lead an active life because I think that performer, the same as a wolf, is fed by his legs. I have no personal recipe. I don’t drink eggnog. It has cholesterol. In the last five months I lost twenty kilograms. It is not a diet but a different way of eating. I excluded fats, bread, pastries, and sugar. At the beginning it was difficult; I wanted to eat. Now I divide food into five servings during the day. The main thing is not to violate dietary discipline and not to go hungry. This can affect the voice. Once during vacation I took up cleaning out my organism. In twelve days I lost thirteen kilos. I felt enormously light. But I had not taken into consideration one circumstance that in five days I had solo concert in Innsbruck scheduled. It was then when I understood that I cannot joke with my voice, my greatest wealth.
