What is the most important event in Your life?
The most important thing for me is that Ive found my way in the world of Art from the first steps. Everything could have developed another way round and my life would have turned to another side. And in my private life certainly the birth of my son.
1979-th.
This was the year I was in full blossom as a singer and I had the highest taking-off. I became a laureate of Glinka Republic Competition. That same year there was held the selection among the laureates for probation in Italy at the famous La Scala theatre. Five singers from the Soviet Union were selected and I also had luck: Paata Burchuladze (Tbilisi), Vladimir Zverev and Vladimir Popov (Moscow Academy of Music), Vyacheslav Bolzhynimaev (Byryatia) and I from Ukraine. The selection was very serious, almost like a competition. At the same time I started working in the National Opera: first as a probationer but then in three months I was already transferred to the main staff of singers. And after a month I had a debut in the theatre in the part of Oksana in S. Hulak-Artemovskys opera Zaporizian Beyond the Danube. I began working at other parts, but I had to leave everything and to go to Italy: the time of probation came.
Well, there started a new period in your life; I suppose, it was different from your previous experience?
Quiet different! The new season in La Scala had just begun and the studying was organized in such a way that different teachers worked with us at different parts. This is how I learned the parts of Mimi and Madama Butterfly (La Boheme, Cio-Cio-San by Puccini), Caroline (Il Matrimonio Segreto by Cimarosa) and soprano part in Verdis Requiem.
And what about vocal training?
I studied vocal once a week with the famous teacher and great singer Juliet Simionato. I keep so many reminiscences about that time! Every day revealing something new, unknown in myself, in my own voice; discovering Italy, the atmosphere of the world famous theatre this is already quite enough to write a book about. The impressions I got there will suffice for all my life. It was unusual and wonderful to be in La Scala every day, to see the stage we used to walk to the school across the hall of the theatre. And at those moments already I was full of the fluids, the energy of the people who had sung from that stage. I had an opportunity to listen to the rehearsals (and it was also school, and great school at that!), to visit performances they gave us a discount season-ticket.
Your first performance in The National Opera. Recollections? Feelings?
The first performace Zaporizian Beyond the Danube became a great trial for me. Id caught a cold, but didnt allow myself to postpone the performance and I sang though my condition was far from perfect. But all the same - I couldnt allow myself to refuse. Thats why I put on the stage a thermos with warm herbal tea and had a drink when it was possible by the situation of the performance.
Do You believe that life has more positive than negative?
Certainly. First, life is based on positive things: therere so many beautiful, wonderful and unique things around us in nature, in people. We should keep it in mind. If we hadnt fixed our attention on positive things, we would have already been pulled into a horrible abyss. By the way, to see the good but not the bad is also a peculiarity of my character.
What part in Your work do you think is turning -point?
I think, the part of Cio-Cio-San. It was a turning point in my life. My attention on this part was concentrated certainly later, when they were preparing the opera for production in our theatre. But during the probation in La Scala I saw the production of Madama Butterfly and dreamed that some time I would sing this part in the theatre. First I had an emploi of the lyric soprano and didnt allow myself to sing dramatic parts. It happened quite later the opera was first taken out of the repertoire and then the new production was made. The conductor Oleg Ryabov offered me to sing Cio-Cio-San. Id learned this part in Italy. Since that time the part might have settled and I myself have learned more. At the time that I was singing it I had already had a child. The feeling of motherhood is a very important thing both in life and in playing such part as Butterfly.
Do You believe in the theory of mans several existences in previous life?
I dont know But when I was in France I came to Avignon (the former residence of the Pontific) and found myself in the medieval castle in Avignon they have a lot of half-destroyed castles (imagine, the walls up to 1,5 meters wide) where the owners usually walked only in furs and warmed themselves near fire-places. These huge castles were lighted with torches, I very sharply felt that I had already been there before. Its a pity we cant explain such things this strange feeling that something has happened to you before, that you remember exactly the place where you have just entered. But I often found myself in the situation as if it was repeated in my life. Not so late they have begun to write about it. Im interested in such literature. In that castle in Avignon they had perfect acoustics. And though I usually dont like singing somewhere unexpectedly, when they asked me to do it I sang the sound was wonderful and I got an unforgettable impression after that as though something similar had already happened to me.
What part was the most difficult for You to learn?
First I thought that it would be difficult to answer this question, because I dont remember. But then Ive recollected, it was the part of Elsa in Vagners opera Loengrine. The reason was simple and even banal there were not enough rehearsals. And, as the opera was performed in German, it wasnt easy. The performance was played very seldom in the theatre. We had two staffs and I didnt often have a chance to sing Elsa they worked mainly with the first staff and I was in the second. Thats why every time I had to go out on the stage as if for the first time. Loengrine is the opera that, probably, has taken away the greatest part of my health.
In what countries did you perform?
Its easier to say in what countries I didnt. Im not sure I can even enumerate! As for the continents, they are: Australia, South and North America, and the whole Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore.
You work only in the theatre. Is teaching not attractive for you?
I dont allow to occupy myself with pupils, to teach vocal, because I cant find theoretical base, explanation of how to sing, why I do it that way and not another. Im not a theoretic, Im a practical worker. And I cant find theoretical ground for my sense of image-creation. I can only live it through playing on the stage.
