FULL KATERYNA (Arkas) Odessa 2022 Dmitry Pavlyuk, Elena Starodubtseva, Yulia Tereshchuk
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Kateryna
- Composer: Mykola Mykolayovych Arkas
- Libretto: adapted as from Taras Shevchenko's poem of the same title Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, Odessa Ukraine
- Recorded: 2022
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Dmitry Pavlyuk, Elena Starodubtseva, Yulia Tereshchuk, Yuri Dudar, Vladyslav Gorai, Natalia Kadantseva, Ekaterina Lyan
- Conductor: unknown
- Orchestra:
- Chorus Master: Leonid Butenko
- Stage Director: Sergey Zuenko
- Stage Designer: Natalia Bevzenko-Zinkina
- Costume Designer:
- Lighting Designer: Vyacheslav Usherenko
Information about the Recording
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: mail.ru FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Quote from https://ukrainianlive.org/
Mykola Arkas was a man of great talent and many interests. He was not only a composer but also a historian (author of the famous essay History of Ukraine-Rus), cultural figure, philanthropist, and military man.
The lyric opera Kateryna is the first and only work of the composer in this genre. It was written by Arkas in 1891, but for five years the manuscript lay in the censorship of Moscow and Kyiv. Fragments of the opera were performed in the home city of Arkas – in Mykolayiv in 1897, at the expense of the author. On the cover of the book, there was only the name of Taras Shevchenko, the authorship of the music and libretto were hidden by the cryptonym «Н. А. …ъ», and from above the dedication stated: “To my dear, unforgettable wife Olesya”. The piece rejected by censorship was fully performed only 8 years after it was written thanks to the faith and support of the outstanding director Marko Kropyvnytskyi and the excellent acting of his theater troupe. The performance took place in the Moscow Aquarium Theater. Thus, in the wake of national democratic sentiments which were prevailing in the society in the late nineteenth century, the Ukrainian opera after Shevchenko was a huge success in the second city of the Russian Empire and then began to be staged in theaters in Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus.
When creating the score Mykola Arkas used more than 400 Ukrainian folk songs, which he and his wife Olha Ivanivna collected in different places, visiting the villages of Mykolayiv and Poltava, as well as heard from kobzars and bandura players, whom the composer invited to his home in Mykolayiv. He wrote the libretto text himself. A new literary arrangement of the libretto was made in 1963 by Diodor Bobyr.
An interesting fact, Arkas introduced a character missing from Shevchenko – Andriy, who sincerely loves Kateryna. This character strengthened the lyrical side of the opera, emphasizing the contrast of the psychological situation of the whole drama.
Text by Viktoriia Antoshevska
Translated by Taras Demko