A Night at the Opera

By Walter Kish

This past weekend, my wife and I took some relatives from the village to see the opera Natalka Poltavka at the national opera theatre. To be exact, it is the Taras Shevchenko National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet of Ukraine, and it usually makes everyone’s must-see list when they visit Kyiv. 

This magnificent Renaissance structure was build in 1901 on the spot where a previous smaller theatre from 1856 had stood, but which burned down in 1896. An international competition selected the winning architect Victor Shreter from St. Petersburg. Although it has over the decades served as the venue for numerous memorable performances, it is probably best remembered for a somewhat more morbid event. On September 14, 1911 it was in this theatre that Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin was assassinated while watching an opera with Tsar Nicholas II.

Although the theatre was bombed during the Second World War, it remarkably escaped with only minor damage even though most of central Kyiv was almost totally destroyed. Major renovations to the theatre were carried out during the 1980s, and recently a large bust of Shevchenko was added over the main entrance, to the consternation of architectural purists who claim it is in conflict with the building’s aesthestic integrity.

Right next to the theatre stands a statue of Ukraine’s best-known musical composer, Mykola Lysenko, author of the very opera we had come to see, Natalka Poltavka.  Lysenko was born in 1842 in Poltava oblast to a family of Cossack lineage. He was a great admirer of the poetry of Taras Shevchenko, and an avid folklorist. While studying at Kyiv University, Lysenko collected traditional Ukrainian folksongs, eventually publishing seven volumes of them. Lysenko later studied at the conservatory in Leipzig  as well as under the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg, and though he composed a variety of musical works, he is best remembered for his nine operas, especially Natalka Poltavka, Taras Bulba and Eneida. 

Aside from his musical endeavours, he was a strong supporter of Ukrainian nationalism. It is said that he was involved in the abortive 1905 revolution against czarist rule, and was briefly jailed in 1907 for his political activities. When Tchaikovsky offered to stage the opera Taras Bulba in Moscow, Lysenko refused, insisting that it could only be performed in Ukrainian and not Russian.

The opera Natalka Poltavka is adapted from a play by Ivan Kotlyarevsky, one of Ukraines’s great eighteenth century writers, who also hailed from Poltava. Lysenko adapted another of Kotlyarevsky’s noted works, the epic poem Eneida, into an opera as well. 

More recently, Oleh Skrypka, one of Ukraine’s most famous rock musicians, has taken his hand to Natalka Poltavka and created an updated version of it. My wife and I took in a performance of this latest version at the Ivan Franko Theatre here in Kyiv several months ago. In contrast to the more classical, orchestrated version that we enjoyed at the Opera Theatre, his interpretation inducted rock rhythms into the folk score. Skrypka himself played one of the lead roles in the performance, demonstrating his musical talent and versatility. The cultural elite have applauded the adaptation, including Skrypka’s friend, President Yushchenko himself.

Kyivans have the grand opportunity to see these two different versions of Natalka Poltavka during the same theatrical season. It is a tribute to not only to the richness of Kyiv’s cultural life, but to the enduring popularity of both Lysenko and Kotlyarevsky.