Taras Shtonda: “Opera fans are the audience elite. Awards and prizes

Taras Shtonda Taras Borisovich Shtonda
basic information
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A country	Ukraine 22x20px Ukraine
Professions
Singing voice
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Teams
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Awards
Autograph
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Taras Borisovich Shtonda(born December 1, Kyiv, USSR) - Ukrainian opera singer (bass), soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine, guest soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, People's Artist of Ukraine ().

Biography

In 1993 he graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory. P. Tchaikovsky. Since 1992 - soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine. Since 2002 he has been performing at the Bolshoi Theater as a guest soloist.

In 2006, he starred in the opera film “Cossack beyond the Danube” (based on the opera by S. Gulak-Artemovsky, directed by N. Zaseev-Rudenko, O. Kovalev).

Awards and prizes

Discography

• - “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, conductor Alexander Vedernikov (Ruslan)
• - D. Shostakovich. Symphony No. 13, conductor Roman Kofman
• - D. Shostakovich. Symphony No. 14, conductor Roman Kofman

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An excerpt characterizing Shtond, Taras Borisovich

- Only that they really deeply revered John, despite the fact that they had never met him. – North smiled. – Well, one more thing is that, after the death of Radomir and Magdalena, the Cathars actually had the real “Revelations” of Christ and the diaries of John, which the Roman Church tried to find and destroy at all costs. The Pope's servants tried their best to find out where the damned Cathars hid their most dangerous treasure?! For if all this had appeared openly, the history of the Catholic Church would have suffered a complete defeat. But, no matter how hard the church bloodhounds tried, luck never smiled on them... Nothing was found except a few manuscripts of eyewitnesses.
That is why the only way for the church to somehow save its reputation in the case of the Cathars was only to distort their faith and teaching so much that no one in the world could distinguish truth from lies... As they easily did with the lives of Radomir and Magdalena.
The church also claimed that the Cathars worshiped John even more than Jesus Radomir himself. Only by John they meant “their” John, with his false Christian gospels and the same false manuscripts... The Cathars indeed revered the real John, but he, as you know, had nothing in common with the church John-“ baptist."
– You know, North, I have the impression that the church distorted and destroyed ENTIRE world history. Why was this necessary?
– In order not to allow a person to think, Isidora. To make obedient and insignificant slaves out of people, who were “forgiven” or punished by the “holiest” at their discretion. For if a person knew the truth about his past, he would be a PROUD person for himself and his Ancestors and would never put on a slave collar. Without the TRUTH, from being free and strong, people became “slaves of God”, and no longer tried to remember who they really were. This is the present, Isidora... And, frankly, it does not leave too bright hopes for change.
The north was very quiet and sad. Apparently, having observed human weakness and cruelty for so many centuries, and seeing how the strongest perished, his heart was poisoned with bitterness and disbelief in the imminent victory of Knowledge and Light... And I so wanted to shout to him that I still believe that people will wake up soon !.. Despite the anger and pain, despite the betrayal and weakness, I believe that the Earth will finally not be able to withstand what is being done to its children. And he would wake up... But I understood that I could not convince him, since I myself would soon have to die, fighting for this same awakening.
But I didn’t regret... My life was just a grain of sand in an endless sea of ​​suffering. And I just had to fight to the end, no matter how terrible it was. Since even drops of water, falling constantly, are capable of someday breaking through the strongest stone. So is EVIL: if people crushed it even grain by grain, it would someday collapse, even if not during this lifetime. But they would return again to their Earth and see - it was THEY who helped her survive!.. It was THEY who helped her become Light and Faithful. I know that the North would say that man does not yet know how to live for the future... And I know that so far this has been true. But this is precisely what, in my understanding, stopped many from making their own decisions. Because people are too accustomed to thinking and acting “like everyone else,” without standing out or interfering, just to live in peace.

Taras Shtonda has been singing in Russia for more than twenty years, from time to time leaving the country to show off abroad. Just recently he returned from St. Petersburg, after a triumphant performance in Wagner's Die Walküre on the New Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre.

Towards the end of the 145th theater season, the National Opera of Ukraine invited opera lovers to the performance “Three Bass”. And all evening, under the arches of the theater, pearls of opera classics performed by Taras Shtonda, Sergei Magera and Sergei Kovnir sounded. The Concert of Three Bass is a real opera show, where each of the artists was able to say more in one evening on stage than in one performance. There are many talented basses in the Natsopera troupe, but they do not have the opportunity to fully demonstrate their talents to the Kyiv public - after all, in recent years, several operas where basses performed the leading roles have disappeared from the repertoire: “Faust”, “Nabucco” and “Taras Bulba”.

On the stage of the National Opera, Taras Shtonda sings only three leading roles: Boris Godunov, Aleko and King René in Iolanta. So it turns out that the artist satisfies his creative hunger on stages in different parts of our planet.

Shtonda became a soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine while still a student at the conservatory. The fact that a new star had appeared in the operatic firmament became clear already in the first couple of seasons of his work in the theater. He was and is being compared to Fyodor Chaliapin for his amazingly beautiful voice timbre, mastery of performance and artistry. Today Taras Shtonda is People's Artist of Ukraine, leading soloist of the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater. T.G. Shevchenko has been a guest soloist at the Bolshoi Theater for more than 10 years. The best part is that with all his regalia, he remains a very modest, friendly and open-to-communication person. met with the artist in the singer’s cozy apartment on Rusanovka to talk about his work, modern directing and the place of opera in the cultural life of Kyiv.

I noticed on your table a book by Vladimir Sorokin, who wrote the libretto for Leonid Desyatnikov’s opera “The Children of Rosenthal.” It was staged at the Bolshoi Theater in 2005, and you have been singing there since 2002. Did you take part in this production?

No, I did not take part in it, I listened to this opera. In general, I love this kind of prose and Sorokin too - he is a rather shocking writer, but he has enormous talent. I also enjoy reading Venedikt Erofeev and. All these authors adored Dostoevsky and Gogol, but I believe that only the reader can perceive modern prose who was brought up on the classics.

As for “Rosenthal's Children,” it seems to me that this is not Sorokin’s best work. He had motives for cloning great people before, in the play “Dysmorphomania.” What appeals to me about this opera is that the director chose it for his experiments, and not a classical opera. I think: if you want to frolic and express yourself in modern directing, take the opera of your contemporary and do what you want!

I take it that you are not a fan of contemporary experimental opera directing?

Unfortunately, 95% of the opera world is now structured in such a way that modern direction is superimposed on classical music, in which not a single note changes. The result is rarely successful. But you don't have to choose. Basically, all my work in the West is participation in modernized productions, when the action, originally embedded in the plot, is transferred to our time.

For example?

Let’s take Tchaikovsky’s “The Enchantress,” staged in Antwerp in 2011. In the original, the action takes place in Nizhny Novgorod in the 15th century. In the Belgian version, the Grand Duke's viceroy, Prince Nikita Kurlyatev, turns into a top manager of the company, and his wife Eupraxia turns into a businesswoman. All storylines and love triangles are preserved, but transferred to our reality.

The director was the German director of Turkish origin Tatiana Gurbacha, who had already become famous in the West, the favorite student of one of the apologists of modern opera directing, Peter Konwitschny. It’s very entertaining to watch; this director’s decision attracts the audience. But there is one thing. What to do with Tchaikovsky's music, which tells about something else? You can hear antiquity and calm in it, and not the frantic rhythm of our time, the intonations of a prince, and not a top manager.

Or another example, not from my practice, but from the famous production of Dvorak’s “Rusalka” at the Metropolitan Opera. There is a vivid episode when the mermaid’s father, Vodyanoy, a mythical creature, comes to the Prince’s ball and sadly asks his daughter to return to her world, because the Mermaid will not be happy among people. This aria only makes an impression when the visuals coincide with the plot. She loses her charm when the ball turns into a corporate party, and the strange monster becomes an elderly man who has moved from the urban poor to the business elite.

The water world and the human world are as far from each other as the world of rich and poor. You're just missing a fairy tale.

Yes, probably. I want fabulousness, beautiful costumes, interesting scenery! Another example is the production of Parsifal in Malmö, Sweden. The director's idea was that the action takes place not in ancient England, as written in the original libretto, but in the time of the opera's author, Richard Wagner. A kind of theater within a theater: a rehearsal for the play is underway, and the actors are dressed in costumes from the late 19th century!

Personally, I would, of course, prefer that my hero, the Grail Knight Gurnemanz, was dressed according to his historical era. But despite this difference, the actions of all the artists were consistent with what was inherent in the plot and music. This is fine. It’s worse when the actors’ actions contradict the music and the plot of the opera. And thank God, I have never encountered such blatant directing.

At the Bolshoi Theater you worked with such directors as Robert Sturua, Alexander Sokurov and Temur Chkheidze. Please tell us about this experience.

In Sturua's 2004 production of Mazepa, the action was moved to the Stalin era. Kochubey is a collective farmer, Mazepa and Orlik are Cheka commissars. Despite the lack of the usual surroundings of the early 18th century, there were very interesting mise-en-scenes. Sturua is a pleasure to work with. He will not demand a thorough repetition of his instructions if the actor offers something of his own, and it seems convincing to the director.

When I again came out in the classic version of “Mazeppa” - already in Kyiv - I lacked interesting directorial solutions. But despite the classic nature of our direction, I am interested in bringing into the roles what I learned from celebrities - Robert Sturua, Alexander Sokurov, Francesca Zambello and others.

What are your impressions of “Boris Godunov” directed by Sokurov at the Bolshoi Theater?

The director's concept was unusual for many performers. Sokurov’s idea was that Boris was suffering not only from remorse, but also from the fact that he could not be left alone for a second. He is always under someone's watchful gaze. Even the famous scene of Godunov’s hallucinations was observed by his boyars.

At first this shocked me, then I internally agreed with his interpretation. About the hallucination scene “Ugh, heavy! Let me catch my breath...” Sokurov said: “I want to completely get away from the Chaliapin stereotype. There is no need to fall to your knees and look into the corner, pointing with your hand and saying, “Over there... over there, what’s there? There, in the corner... It’s swaying, growing...!” Let’s play as if everything is happening in Boris’s own head - clasp your head in your hands, as if this hallucination is growing like a cancerous tumor.” During the time that the production of “Boris Godunov” was on the Bolshoi stage, I sang this part 15 times.

On the Bolshoi stage you also performed in one of your favorite Shostakovich operas, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, staged by Temur Chkheidze.

"Lady Macbeth" never took root in the theater's repertoire. In my opinion, Chkheidze made a very significant mistake. He allowed an eclecticism of styles: he began the performance in a realistic manner, and then suddenly began to use a language of symbols that was understandable only to the director himself. It seems to me that style eclecticism is unacceptable here. The unified language of the performance was not maintained, and as a result, the audience did not accept it. If the opera had been staged using symbols from the very beginning, as was done in the famous production of La Traviata with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, perhaps the audience would have appreciated such a director's concept.

In mid-June you sang Wotan in Wagner's Die Walküre at the New Stage. Valery Gergiev was at the controls - is this your first meeting with him?

I sang with Gergiev for the first time. For the first time, by the way, I came across such a conducting style. I came to the orchestral rehearsal, intending to “catch” Gergiev’s hand. And after a few measures I realized that this was not necessary. He told me: “Sing, listen to the orchestra, try not to rush.” He always gives you the opportunity to create, and only if you are not singing with him does he look up at you. Sing and create! If he insists on his musical concept, he will wave his hand a little more clearly and look at you. That's all.

In one of the reviews of this performance there was a phrase that the guest bass Taras Shtonda became the main star of the evening.

This is the opinion of one of the reviewers, but it was still nice that many people praised and even admired me on opera forums. I did really well. But I'm more proud of the fact that I managed to learn this part in two weeks.

They called me from the Mariinsky Theater on May 27 and asked if I knew the role of Wotan. I honestly said that I only sang the third act. In response, I was offered to come to St. Petersburg and learn the entire part, on the spot. At the Mariinsky Theater I had five hours of lessons a day at the theater, and two or three hours every day I devoted to this part at home. In two weeks I prepared the entire game in Old German. It was then that I realized with surprise that we do not know our true capabilities! We are used to working on batches for months, three hours a week. It turns out that you can work on a game 50 hours a week!

On June 11, I already sang the orchestral song by heart! Gergiev’s words were more valuable than the public’s praise and applause. On the eve of the performance, I asked the chief accompanist of the Mariinsky Theater: “There will be no more rehearsals with Gergiev? After all, we have gone through less than half of the opera.” And I heard in response: “Valery Abisalovich said that you are a professional, and he trusts you!”

Is the production process different in the Kiev theater and abroad?

Different as heaven and earth! But I don’t know whose approach is better; I like each one in its own way. For example, the Bolshoi Theater has partially switched to the Western system, performances are staged in blocks, this is no longer the usual Soviet-era repertory theater that we are used to. He began to work like the Metropolitan Opera or the Vienna Staatsoper: a conductor, director and soloists are separately invited to stage each performance.

As a result, it turns out that the artists who come to stage the play are engaged only in it. This is a huge plus for learning the game. The artist concentrates only on his role for one and a half to two months, and by the premiere of the play he knows the part perfectly, his actions are brought to automaticity in the mise-en-scène, and all this, of course, is reflected in the quality of the productions.

In addition, in such projects, an artist who has spent so much time on just one opera receives a completely different remuneration than in a repertory theater, where he receives a monthly salary and small additional payments for participating in performances. Although, I probably feel more comfortable in my native repertory theater, because there is more room for creativity. We don’t have such a frantic rhythm, and here I feel absolutely free on stage, since I have the opportunity to improvise.

There is not a single photograph of you on the walls in your apartment! And you constantly repeat that you are not a star, you constantly belittle your own merits and merits. But the facts say otherwise.

Yes, I don’t have a cult of myself. It is absolutely impossible to be in a creative profession, to practice art, and not consider yourself talented. An artist who does not feel his talent, does not like himself, cannot count on success - he simply will not be able to captivate the audience. By the age of 46, I have already reached such maturity that I clearly feel that I have been given talent.

But this must coexist - and coexists perfectly - with the strictest self-criticism. I constantly criticize myself mercilessly in order to achieve the highest quality of performance. I constantly research my previous work and try to record what I liked so that I can use it in the future, and what I don’t like is cut off and not repeated. Now we have all the technical capabilities for this: at home, for example, I have more than three hundred of my videos. And if I see that the ideal has not been achieved, then I admit it quite honestly and work on.

A very indicative example is the great Maria Callas, who before the performance set herself up like this: “I am a great, unique star, now I will show something that the public has never heard before!” And after the performance she gnawed at herself: “I could have sung better!” This approach to art is the only correct one. Many famous singers - both Nesterenko and Nesterenko - wrote that an artist must have enormous self-confidence and the courage to evaluate himself critically after a performance.

Tickets for opera performances in Vienna, Milan, and London are purchased many months before the performance. In Ukraine, audiences give preference to ballet. What is the reason for such a different attitude towards opera in our country and in the West, in your opinion?

This is how it happened historically. It is not for nothing that in Soviet times we were “ahead of the rest in the field of ballet”: our ballet school gave the world a lot of stars. In Europe, over the centuries, the cult of opera has developed primarily. Tickets for opera performances in European theaters are very expensive, but despite this they are sold out six months before the performance. Opera is an elite art, and Europe has a very high musical audience culture.

Is there a public in Ukraine with a high level of viewing culture?

I call opera fans the spectator elite, but unlike the West, this is far from the most affluent part of the population. This is a rather narrow stratum - in the whole of Kyiv there are only a few hundred true opera fans and music lovers. And there are still several thousand people who go to the opera from time to time.

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Taras Borisovich Shtonda(born December 1, Kyiv, USSR) - Ukrainian opera singer (bass), soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine, guest soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, People's Artist of Ukraine ().

Biography

In 1993 he graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory. P. Tchaikovsky. Since 1992 - soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine. Since 2002 he has been performing at the Bolshoi Theater as a guest soloist.

In 2006, he starred in the opera film “Cossack beyond the Danube” (based on the opera by S. Gulak-Artemovsky, directed by N. Zaseev-Rudenko, O. Kovalev).

Awards and prizes

Discography

• - “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, conductor Alexander Vedernikov (Ruslan)
• - D. Shostakovich. Symphony No. 13, conductor Roman Kofman
• - D. Shostakovich. Symphony No. 14, conductor Roman Kofman

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An excerpt characterizing Shtond, Taras Borisovich

The road along which they walked was littered with dead horses on both sides; ragged people lagging behind different teams, constantly changing, then joined, then again lagged behind the marching column.
Several times during the campaign there were false alarms, and the soldiers of the convoy raised their guns, shot and ran headlong, crushing each other, but then they gathered again and scolded each other for their vain fear.
These three gatherings, marching together - the cavalry depot, the prisoner depot and Junot's train - still formed something separate and integral, although both of them, and the third, were quickly melting away.
The depot, which had initially contained one hundred and twenty carts, now had no more than sixty left; the rest were repulsed or abandoned. Several carts from Junot's convoy were also abandoned and recaptured. Three carts were plundered by the backward soldiers from Davout's corps who came running. From conversations of the Germans, Pierre heard that this convoy was put on guard more than the prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, was shot on the orders of the marshal himself because a silver spoon that belonged to the marshal was found on the soldier.
Of these three gatherings, the prisoner depot melted the most. Of the three hundred and thirty people who left Moscow, there were now less than a hundred left. The prisoners were even more of a burden to the escorting soldiers than the saddles of the cavalry depot and Junot's baggage train. Junot’s saddles and spoons, they understood that they could be useful for something, but why did the hungry and cold soldiers of the convoy stand guard and guard the same cold and hungry Russians who were dying and lagged behind on the road, whom they were ordered to shoot? not only incomprehensible, but also disgusting. And the guards, as if afraid in the sad situation in which they themselves were, not to give in to their feeling of pity for the prisoners and thereby worsen their situation, treated them especially gloomily and strictly.
In Dorogobuzh, while the convoy soldiers, having locked the prisoners in a stable, went off to rob their own stores, several captured soldiers dug under the wall and ran away, but were captured by the French and shot.
The previous order, introduced upon leaving Moscow, for captured officers to march separately from the soldiers, had long been destroyed; all those who could walk walked together, and Pierre, from the third transition, had already united again with Karataev and the lilac bow-legged dog, which had chosen Karataev as its owner.
Karataev, on the third day of leaving Moscow, developed the same fever from which he was lying in the Moscow hospital, and as Karataev weakened, Pierre moved away from him. Pierre didn’t know why, but since Karataev began to weaken, Pierre had to make an effort on himself to approach him. And approaching him and listening to those quiet moans with which Karataev usually lay down at rest, and feeling the now intensified smell that Karataev emitted from himself, Pierre moved away from him and did not think about him.
In captivity, in a booth, Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in the satisfaction of natural human needs, and that all unhappiness comes not from lack, but from excess; but now, in these last three weeks of the campaign, he learned another new, comforting truth - he learned that there is nothing terrible in the world. He learned that just as there is no situation in which a person would be happy and completely free, there is also no situation in which he would be unhappy and not free. He learned that there is a limit to suffering and a limit to freedom, and that this limit is very close; that the man who suffered because one leaf was wrapped in his pink bed suffered in the same way as he suffered now, falling asleep on the bare, damp earth, cooling one side and warming the other; that when he used to put on his narrow ballroom shoes, he suffered in exactly the same way as now, when he walked completely barefoot (his shoes had long since become disheveled), with feet covered with sores. He learned that when, as it seemed to him, he had married his wife of his own free will, he was no more free than now, when he was locked in the stable at night. Of all the things that he later called suffering, but which he hardly felt then, the main thing was his bare, worn, scabby feet. (Horse meat was tasty and nutritious, the saltpeter bouquet of gunpowder, used instead of salt, was even pleasant, there was not much cold, and during the day it was always hot while walking, and at night there were fires; the lice that ate the body warmed pleasantly.) One thing was hard. at first it’s the legs.