Sunday afternoon in the Temerty Theatre the participants in this year’s Ukrainian art song intensive presented the results of their efforts during the week.  There were eight singers (nine if one adds in mentor Benjamin Butterfield who came in for a couple of numbers).  Steven Philcox and Leanne Regehr shared the piano parts.

Like previous years it was staged “in the round” in Temerty with the piano at centre and the audience ranged around it on all sides.  Singers came and went, singing from the centre or the periphery.  It was really quite slick and ensured that the two halves of the programme flowed.  A variety of composers and poets from the 19th century to the present were featured.  A lot of Ukrainian art song has significant folk influences but it seemed particularly strong in the twenty odd songs chosen this year.  There were touches of church music influence too.  Perhaps given current events it was inevitable that there would be a bent towards the wistful, sad and even downright depressing.  There were songs explicitly about Ukraine’s tragic history:

The fields, the field!
Mother Earth herself!
What endless blood and tears
The wind has scattered on you[1]

But even the love songs are sad:

Why does the wound in my heart fester,
Singed by the poison of your arrow?[2]

There was one comic song though; The Chumak and the Tar Pot with music by Yakiv Stepovy and text by Stepan Rudansky.  This got a staging that was as silly as the song and was presented with excellent fooling by Yanina Kosivanova, Benjamin Butterfield and Sergey Lavrentyev.

There was some really good lyric singing.  I was particularly impressed by Jennifer Turner’s rich, expressive and rather dramatic soprano but there was much to like too in the younger, brighter sounds of Maria Pottle and Yanina Kosivanova.  Mezzo Kimberley Denis showed some impressive low notes  in the rather beautiful ensemble number that closed the concert[3].

Among the gentlemen I really enjoyed Andrew Wolf’s expressively beautiful tenor but there was fine singing from the baritones too.  Sergey Lavrentyev was solid across a range of emotional registers, Nazarii Mykhailenko showed some beautiful tone especially when singing softly and Alastair Thorburn-Vitols showed some real dramatic flair.  All in all it was pretty satisfying!

note 1: Oleksander Konysky trans Uliana Pasicznyk & Maxim Tamawsky
note 2: Yaroslav Bodnar trans ditto
note 3: At Night on the Burial Mound; music – Kyrylo Stetsenko, text – Boris Hrinchenko

Photo credit: Andrew Waller