The name of Anton Sharoyev has been entered into the biggest encyclopedic dictionaries, in particular, into Who Is Who international encyclopedia. The honored artist of Ukraine and Russia founded the Kyiv Chamber Orchestra in remote 1963… Sharoyev is known by many Kyiv music buffs who have attended concerts in the Philharmonic Society. Thus in the 1980s there were subscriptions valid for all the concerts of this or that band during a season! The hero of those years was the conductor and violinist Anton Sharoyev who conducted the Kyiv Chamber Orchestra. Emotional and spontaneous maestro liked talking to the audience and he did it during this concert as well.
The first part of the concert was dedicated to Yevhen Stankovych’s Opera Rustica (the rural opera) in seven parts for soprano, baritone, and chamber orchestra with the libretto by Borys Oliinyk. This music piece was chosen by the conductor. In fact, it is a vocal cycle of seven parts. The soloists were Olha Chubarieva and Roman Smoliar. Chubarieva’s performance was especially harmonic and her piano just charmed the audience. The combination of her brilliant timbre, her mastership, and sincere feelings she filled with every word gave its results. The second part of the concert was dedicated to Bach and Tchaikovsky. After the performance maestro kindly agreed to answer several questions by The Day.
Why did you choose this music piece by Stankovych for your anniversary concert?
“Some time ago the author created it on my request. I wanted this music to be sincere, heartfelt, and clear for everyone and it is so. Yevhen Stankovych is a very fruitful composer. Unfortunately, he was unable to come to this concert as his mother passed away three days prior to it...”
What do you feel coming on the stage of the Kyiv Philharmonic Society after so many years?
“I recall how difficult it was to create this orchestra and I am very glad that it has become one of the important European chamber orchestras. Besides, music of many Ukrainian composers was first played by this orchestra.”
Could you, please, tell us about your tour routes?
“Now I am mainly working to restore the spiritual opera Christus written by my famed great-grandfather Anton Rubinstein. I found its score in one of the German libraries. By the way, I was named Anton in his honor. Now I am almost 85 but I want to manage to restore the forgotten compositions written by my great-grandfather. I would like to remind you that Christus was written in 1893. In May 1894 it was performed in Stuttgart conducted by the author. After that the opera was not played anywhere. For many years the score was considered lost. This story is almost a detective one. Head of the Perm Opera House Georgij Isaakyan once felt an urge to stage the opera. An employee of Goethe Institut helped me to get in touch with two workers of the Berlin Central Library. They informed me that there was a microfilm with Rubinstein’s opera in their register. To get its copy I had to overcome lots of obstacles. In that difficult situation I was helped by the people from the team of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the result of a complicated operation we managed to save the opera and take it back to the stage! The Perm Opera House was the first to stage the opera after over a hundred years of oblivion! It happened in mid-December 2008. The opera was staged in five languages, mainly in Russian, partly in German, old Hebrew, Armenian, and Latin. Why so? Because Jesus Christ belongs to the whole humanity!
“Soon we are going to have several concerts in which this opera will be played in its concert performance. Except Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities it will be played in Riga, Tallinn and, probably, in Vilnius. In St. Petersburg it will be performed in the Hall of the Nobility (the present Large Hall of the Philharmonic Society). I also want the Kyivites to hear it very much.”
