Yevhen Stankovych recently returned from Donetsk. The Solovianenko Opera and Ballet Theater is getting ready to stage a new version of his folk opera Tsvit paporoti (The Magical Fern Flower). The Seattle Orchestra will soon perform his Symphonietta. The composer is working on completing his opera based on Gogol’s short story “A Terrible Vengeance.”
The Stankovych phenomenon is a self-sustained one in Ukrainian culture. His creative legacy alone can represent contemporary professional music. His works, performed by leading singers, are known in many countries. It is hard to find a genre where Stankovych has not left examples of top-notch creativity — ballets, operas, vocal- symphony frescoes, concertos (including 10 chamber symphonies), compositions for church choirs, instrumental concertos, chamber works, film soundtracks, including the 20-episode TV series Roksolana. There is, however, a special composition in his heritage that deserves special notice.
FOLK OPERA
Nina Matviienko’s repertoire includes an especially penetrating song entitled “ Hlybokyi kolodiaziu” (O, Deep Well). Her voice is as crystal-clear as the water in this well and her rendition is regarded as a lyrical symbol of Ukraine. However, few know that this song originates from Stankovych’s opera Tsvit paporoti. The composer was awarded Radio Europe’s Grand Prix for his arrangement of this ancient melody during a folk competition in 1986. His folk opera, written some 30 years ago, remains an unknown masterpiece of Ukrainian national art.
In the late 1970s, Ukrainian culture suffered another artificial stoppage of the creative process, killing in the bud creative ideas that could have launched our country into the orbit of international recognition, where it could be an independent national phenomenon. Stankovych’s composition, unique in terms of the composer’s innovative approach, marked the appearance of a new kind of national opera and changed the very notion of this genre, despite its more than 400 years of existence. His Tsvit paporoti marked the appearance of folk opera in world operatic art, which was eventually followed by other countries. In fact, Stankovych’s music is rooted in folk songs modernized by contemporary techniques of composition and done with such skill that it is difficult to distinguish between the folk songs and opera music.
Stankovych also combined the traditional opera orchestra with a folk choir (he wrote music for the Veriovka Folk Choir). Operatic scenes were enriched by contemporary choreography. The avant- garde accompaniment was strikingly bold and imaginative, with folk instruments, sounds of nature, shouts, and songs recorded during folk celebrations, as well as such sounds as a fisherman’s bell. Tsvit paporoti’s literary canvas consisted of national sources, like a collage of Gogol’s A Terrible Vengeance, the poems of Taras Shevchenko, historical songs, ballads, and ancient folk rites. The poetic and national musical symbols were supplemented by creative metaphors created by the brilliant production designer Yevhen Lysyk. The noted Polish stage director, Zbigniew Szanowski was invited to take part in the project.
This project was commissioned by the French concert firm Alitepa for an international exhibit in Paris. This meant a very big chance for Ukrainian culture to access the world information market. French experts arrived in Kyiv to watch the preview. Tsvit paporoti was scheduled to be performed at the Ukraine Palace. Word spread quickly and there were intellectuals and university students in front of the palace, eagerly awaiting this major cultural event. Two hours before the performance it was announced that the top cabinet leadership had issued an order to cancel it.
Considering that Suslov was in charge of ideology in Moscow and Malanchuk was in Kyiv, this was like a verdict. There was the sad experience of the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Shortly after it was banned, the unique props and authentic costumes were destroyed after the authorities issued instructions to sprinkle the costumes with a chemical agent that turned them into dust. Why was this composition, whose music reminds one of great ancestral pride, of Ukraine’s age-old culture, the tender soul of its people, deleted from Ukrainian culture?
Stankovych says: “What happened was that our Soviet ideology was at work; the bureaucrats in charge saw this composition as a ‘manifestation of Ukrainian nationalism.’ At the time all national ideas were being constantly and ruthlessly resisted by those in charge of Soviet ideology. The first alarming message came from Belarus. Yevhen Lysyk, who was then the chief production designer with the Miensk Opera, told me about how the local bureaucracy felt about Ukraine, ‘which has started playing at independence.’ During rehearsals he warned me that my folk opera Tsvit paporoti had no future. He was right. As it later transpired, its destiny was decided by Suslov, who instructed official Kyiv to act as directed. The leaders were scared by absurd things. For example, I was told that the song “Oi, Moroze-Morozenku” was dedicated to Valentyn Moroz — and I knew nothing about him at the time. That song is 300 years old! Another example was Lysyk’s stage props, which showed three paths: they were regarded as a symbol of the tryzub [trident, Ukraine’s national emblem] and thus rejected. Obviously, these and other things caused the premiere to be banned.”
Was your composition and official response a reaction to the events that took place in the 1960s and1970s, particularly in regard to Ivan Dziuba’s famous book?
Ivan Dziuba has played a very important role in my life. I owe him my awakening as a true citizen and patriot of Ukraine; to his well-known book and papers dealing with the Holodomor and Stalin’s repressions. Dziuba was the one who opened my eyes to Ukraine’s tragic mission. They had been telling us differently. What I learned impressed me very much, and depressed me. Remember Seneca, who wrote: “In much wisdom is much grief.”
There were several attempts to perform certain scenes from Tsvit paporoti during concerts. The Kupalo (St. John the Baptist) rites had better luck. There is even a CD of Mykola Hobdych’s Kyiv Chamber Choir. But fragments of a composition, furthermore adjusted each time for various performers, cannot present the original folk opera. Why did you decide to create a new version?
Because hope had finally appeared for a stage performance of Tsvit paporoti at the Opera House of Donetsk, under the able guidance of the artistic director and chief choreographer Vadym Pysarev, conductor Vasyl Vasylenko, the Ryndzak Brothers as production designers (Lysyk’s pupils), and Vasyl Vovkun as stage director. Like any other opera house, the one in Donetsk has an academic choir that performs differently from the way a folk one does, so I had to work out another version of Tsvit paporoti by readjusting the choral parts. This meant the loss of certain authentic folk vocal traditions, like the beauty of the low, so-called chest voice timbre, which Ukrainian female folk singers are known for. Changes in the vocal range called forth changes in the music for the orchestra. Needless to say, the new version of Tsvit paporoti somewhat alters the very idea of a synthesis of professional and folk art, but I am strongly attracted by the willingness and enthusiasm of these talented musicians; the whole team of the Donetsk Opera wants this opera on stage, something I have waited for almost 30 years.
MUSICAL BIBLE
Religious motifs appear to be increasingly present among your compositions of the past decade, like the Psalms, St. John’s Liturgy, the Song of the Cherubim, and choral concertos based on texts from the Holy Bible. Did you use biblical texts earlier?
No, I discovered the Bible when I was well into my mature age. A friend of mine, a gifted Lithuanian composer by the name of Osvaldas Balaskausas, presented me with a copy of the Holy Bible. Both of us had studied under the unforgettable guidance of Borys Liatoshynsky. Like most young people of my generation, I had no idea about biblical texts or the Ten Commandments. My mother was a schoolteacher, and I knew I couldn’t act in any way to make her lose her job. At the time the notions of God and the Holy Bible were best kept unspoken. I started writing biblical compositions only eight years ago. It must have taken me all these years to understand the Word of God, to dare give sound to appeals to the Lord. The Holy Bible allows us to understand spiritual values, above all the Ten Commandments that constitute the essence of humankind.
One of your latest creations, a violin concerto that was performed at the National Opera of Ukraine, is remarkably dramatic. Your music reaches the tragic summits. Was your composition inspired by certain events in your life?
It so happened that several very close and dear people died. Such tragic events make one ponder the meaning of existence, the short span of life in this world. In fact, this is what world music is all about, the music of Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Vedel, Berezovsky, Shostakovich, Britten, and Liatoshynsky. In music the drama of human life is accumulated through the tragic overture. The world has always been like that: you have to fight to get what you really need. You have to fight for a good cause because evil, unfortunately, is always there. Therefore, as long as we live, we must make every effort to fill this world with good things.
MUSICAL CULTURE DOESN’T MEAN JUST SHOW BUSINESS
For a number of years you occupied key posts in what was the Composers’ Union of the USSR. You are now the head of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine. What has changed and is this creative organization really necessary?
You know, music really doesn’t need this or that political system or society. Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, or Mussorgsky wrote their music not owing to or because the kind of society they lived in. Tchaikovsky said: “What is the tsar to me? I am the tsar of music.” Another matter is how the state treats culture and its creators. At all times, starting with the Roman Empire, an advanced government has taken care of its culture. Centuries ago sages said that no man stands outside culture. Cultural values are not created by political parties or factions. Who cares how many or ruled by whom? Books, music, paintings, and their authors go down in history. This is actually what the history of civilized progress is all about. What we see now is the absence of criteria and cultural policy in Ukraine; this is leading to the cultural degradation of society. If this government and society leave nothing for posterity, this government and society are for the birds. I, for one, don’t give a hoot about the coalition, but I am really concerned about how our people will live in our country, how they will understand the meaning of their existence; will they have a sense of spiritual life or will they counting up the percentages in some rackets and stealing whatever they can?
Ukraine must have its modern culture in spiritual rather than geographical terms. In this sense the National Union of Composers, like all other creative organizations, is the only medium where people really care to develop professional music; here one finds proof that musical culture in Ukraine is not reduced to show business. Works by Ukrainian composers reflect all strata of modern music and their creativity meets all international standards. In contrast, pop and rock music doesn’t meet them, not even technically. I would explain this by the fact that this kind of music is alien to Ukraine; it came from a country of immigrants (I mean the United States) where there was no solid and historically developed culture. Ukraine has ancient traditions upon which hundreds of talented creative generations have grown. Today, however, we are faced with the threat of losing the continuity of this tradition, even the musician’s profession. Ukraine’s professional musical culture, unlike the state, has long become part of the world’s cultural heritage. However, Ukrainian music will never take the lead in France or Germany, where domestic music comes first. Therefore, works created by Ukrainian composers must be heard in their native land. As for myself, I can say that I have grown worse over the years because I am older. On the other hand, I used to be young and knew nothing, but I have always done my best.
