The National Philharmonic Society (within the framework of the cycle “Evenings of Ukrainian Music. Heritage and Present Time”) featured a performance of the National Academic Orchestra of Folk Instruments of Ukraine (conducted by Viktor Hutsal) and famous singer of Kyiv origin, a European stage star, Viktoria Lukianets. The opera diva has a tight tour schedule; however, she finds time to come for a couple of days to her homeland, where her mother, her family, and a whole army of admirers live. The program Lukianets presented can be called her solo concert (it included nine works – from people’s songs to romances and vocalizes – by Stanislav Liudkevych, Anatolii Kos-Anatolsky, Mykola Lysenko, Ihor Shamo, and Myroslav Skoryk). Only the masters of Viktoria Lukianets’s caliber and virtuoso musicians conducted by Viktor Hutsal could prepare such a rich and splendid program in one rehearsal only. Maybe their names helped them in this (victor means the winner in Latin)? All the numbers met a warm reaction of the audience, which actively applauded and presented the performers with many flowers. Incidentally, the archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Liubomyr (Huzar), an admirer of Lukianets’s singing was also present in the audience.
After the concert I took an interview from the singer, who had a flight back to Austria at 5 a.m., but we could not have a normal talk, as we were interrupted every five minutes by a person from the philharmonic society’s administration, who entered and reminded: “It is too late. Finish. I have to close the dressing room.” (It was only 10 p.m.) Then she demonstratively opened the door and said categorically: “Get out.” I have not seen such rude attitude to an outstanding contemporary for long. For some reason I recalled how in 1996 after the Kyiv concert dedicated to the opening of the revamped palace Ukraina I was interviewing Ruslana Lyzhychko, who had just returned from Belarus where she won a grand-prix at the International Competition of Variety Singers. We were turned out of the dressing room, too. We laughed and I said that soon people would ask for Ruslana’s autographs and the lady on duty would feel ashamed that she did not recognize a future pop star. We continued our conversation outdoors. It was raining, we had no umbrella and hid under the palace’s stairs, and completed the interview. When we met at concerts and festivals later, we recalled the incident with a smile. But you must admit that such a humiliating treatment of an opera diva, especially in the philharmonic society, a temple of high music, was totally out of place. Lukianets was very upset and began to apologize (and the representative of the administration of the philharmonic was demonstratively rattling with the keys and repeating: “Quickly. Go.”).We agreed with Viktoria that the next time she comes to Kyiv we will meet on a neutral territory and the beautiful bouquet of red roses the singer gave me reminds of that extreme meeting.
Ms. Lukianets, on the eve of the concert Viktor Hutsal told The Day that the idea to make a joint Ukrainian program was born in Odesa. You have a big repertoire and perform the works of Ukrainian composers in each concert. Was today’s soiree indeed the first one that included exclusively Ukrainian classical music pieces and works by contemporary Ukrainian composers?
“True, we gave a joint performance with the National Orchestra of Folk Instruments on Independence Day in Odesa. We performed four music pieces together. It was so harmonious that we came up with an idea to give one more joint performance. Hutsal asked whether I would agree to come to Kyiv. I agreed. He undertook all organizing questions. I only asked to make a program that is not currently performed by any of my colleagues. I suggested searching in the archives for Diana Petrynenko, Yelyzaveta Chavdar, Yevhenia Miroshnychenko’s performances. Hutsal looked through his recordings. We negotiated on the phone and on the Internet. I had wanted before long to sing Poltava polka, but something stood in the way all the time. At the soiree I sang for the first time the song ‘Autumn Gold’ by Shamo. Maybe it was time to do it. We agreed upon the repertoire rather quickly, and judging from the audience’s reaction it was a right thing to do, because the audience liked the program. I have never performed such a large Ukrainian program, but almost at every concert I sing encore two or three pieces (folk songs, romances or arias from the national heritage). But I have never performed a solely Ukrainian program, though I have been performing on stage for 23 years.”
You have taken part in charity concerts, when money was raised for building the Church of Christ’s resurrection in Kyiv. Did the proposal to take part in the action come from his Beatitude Liubomyr?
“The concert was directed by Serhii Arkhypchuk: it was him who called me and offered to take part in the action. It was in spring 2008. Then we met with Liubomyr for the first time (he was already the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church). I agreed at once, even though I am an Orthodox, not Greek Catholic, because building a church is God’s cause. The concerts took place in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, and Kyiv. The Kyiv concert was the last time my father heard my singing.”
Opera and folk singing are completely different styles. Was it hard to switch?
“You should seriously prepare for the performance in order not to lose your style, but at the same time not to sing in the academic manner you do in opera. I made my own vocal arrangement because I cannot sing like Raisa Kyrychenko or in the brilliant manner Nina Matviienko performs folksongs. I tried to combine classics and folksongs. I had to find something of my own (folk songs are in our genes).”
Apart from the performances, you also teach at the Vienna Conservatoire. How many pupils do you have? Do you apply the lessons of your teachers, Ivan Palyvoda and Yelyzaveta Chavdar, in your teaching practice?
“I was taught by wonderful teachers, Ivan Hnatovych and Yelyzaveta Ivanivna. They taught me a good base and I always recall them with great warmth. At my lessons I tell what I learnt from them and advise how to better prepare an aria, how to properly estimate your strength, so that your voice sounded beautifully. I offer some things from my experience. I am teaching to an international company, including 15 nationalities (Japanese, Koreans, Austrians, Germans, Kazakhs, Russians, Ukrainians, etc.). There are different ways we find each other. At the moment I have a Japanese student. Her father heard me when I came on tour to Japan, then he listened on YouTube to my performing of the Queen of the Night’s aria from Magic Flute by Mozart and Gilda from Verdi’s Rigoletto, and said: ‘Go to study to Lukianets.’ The girl went to my official website and sent me an e-mail. I replied and we met in Vienna, she told me that she had written to many professors, but I was the first who replied.
“When I need to go on tour and the lesson cannot be held in some other time, my husband [Yurii Kokozei, a singer who worked in the Capela of Bandura Players of Ukraine, taught at the Kyiv Conservatoire, currently a singing teacher in Vienna. – Author] secures me and conducts lessons to consolidate the material we have studied.”
Your daughter is fond of rock music, but singing for her is a hobby, because she is specializing as a philosopher.
“Daria not only sings rock, she writes songs, and has her own rock group. She is doing this for her soul. She is writing a thesis about Plato for her master’s degree (she is studying at the philosophy department of the Vienna University). But she has a good voice. We do classical exercises, and then she sings rock. You know, it is hard to take up academic singing. There is a great risk of taking only singer’s path.”
But your niece Solomia (she became the winner in the Pride of the Country Show in the category “Rare Talent”) will apparently follow in your footsteps?
“At the moment she is studying singing in the fifth grade of Kyiv’s Lysenko School and plays the piano. She is doing well. She started to take flute lessons, which is very good for developing one’s breath. She will study for a couple of years until her voice mutates, then I will take her to Vienna and help, because I remember only too well how hard it was for me to make my first steps abroad.”
Did you leave Ukraine 18 years ago?
“Seventeen. On December 30 it will be 18 years since I left. The 1990s were a terrible period. There was no work in Kyiv (one performance in three months). I cried out of despair, and my husband said if nothing changed for the better in a month, we would go to seek a better life. One incident helped us. I made a good debut at the Mariinsky Theater, then at the Bolshoy Theater. An impresario from Vienna heard me in Moscow and asked to send him my recordings. My husband himself made a video recording of my performance of the parts of Maria Stuart and the Queen of the Night. The impresario showed the video to the administration of the Vienna Opera Theater. I was invited to Austria for audition. We signed a six-month contract. However, my whole family (my husband and daughter) took a risk and left practically for uncertainty. At first we were leasing an apartment, trying to earn money here and there. For several years I have been a soloist at the Vienna Opera. It was very advantageous for the administration: they always had their own singer at hand. I had a similar situation like I had at the National Opera of Ukraine when the administration considered me as a young promising singer, not more. I took a risk, but the time proved that I did a right thing. I think every artist should try himself/herself in a different scenic school. I called foreign impresarios who offered me interesting contracts all over the world. The foreign press started to give publications about me, which was probably the impetus for the administration of the Vienna Opera to offer a new, higher status to me: guest star for specific productions. There is a law in the West: you can be a star only if you are free. There are possibilities for connections, clans, dependence on hierarchy, even more than in Ukraine. It is very important what country you come from. It is easier for Italians, because Italy is a country of opera and bel canto. And suddenly a Ukrainian singer comes from nowhere. What can she sing? Liudmila in Ruslan and Liudmila, okay, but La traviata? No. It’s nonsense. But I succeeded in proving both to the critics, and the audience that a Ukrainian can sing not worse than an Italian.”
How do you like living in Vienna?
“I like Vienna. It resembles Kyiv. It is a compact, chamber city in the center of Europe. I feel there at home.”
You come to homeland every year and see how our life is changing. What is the first thing you notice?
“I can see a beautiful city, nice-looking people wearing good clothing. The shops are full of all kinds of goods. The cuisine is the most delicious in the world. As for the politics, I have no right to criticize, because I come for one or two days, which is not enough to make an analysis of the events and current situation. I will tell you one thing: I want Ukraine to be a strong state, respected in the world. Politics is changing every day, but music is a constant.”
Perhaps you don’t know that the EU have a grant to the National Opera of Ukraine, almost 700,000 euros for staging four plays of the world classics in 2012-13. The theater’s administration has already made its decision about three of them. Those will be Magic Flute, Othello, and Samson and Delilah. Mozart’s Magic Flute is your repertoire. When will we hear you at the home, Kyiv stage?
“This is amazing news. Let’s dream together. I think that I will come to Kyiv soon, because Viktor Hutsal has offered me to jointly record a disc with the Ukrainian program, and I want to add some new works to it. Now I have to put these plans to life. Maybe we will come up with some other ideas later.”
The Day’s FACT FILE
Viktoria LUKIANETS is a Ukrainian opera singer (soprano). She was born in Kyiv. She studied at the Kyiv Music School (class of Ivan Palyvoda), later – at the Kyiv-based Tchaikovsky Conservatoire (Yelyzaveta Chavdar’s class). Viktoria worked as a soloist at the National Opera. She is a winner of numerous competitions, specifically the grand-prix of the Maria Callas Competition (1991). A resident of Vienna, she performs on the stages of many theaters in Europe, the US, and Japan. She has sung many times on the prestigious world stages, such as the Metropolitan-Opera and La Scala. Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti performed with the prima diva on one stage. Art critics compare her bel canto with the voices of the outstanding singers of the last century, such as Amelita Galli-Curci and Adelina Patti. The famous director Franco Zeffirelli, included Lukianets in the “three famous Traviatas” along with Maria Callas and Teresa Stratas. Currently the singer’s repertoire includes over 50 leading parts, which she performs in seven languages.
