Lviv baritone Stepán Stépan performs in the United States (11/09/97)

Lviv baritone Stepán Stépan performs in the United States

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - Stepán Stépan, lead baritone of the Lviv Opera, arrived in the U.S. in August for the opening concert of the summer series at the Music and Art Center of Greene County and subsequently has appeared in recital for various Ukrainian communities, performing arias of the Western classic tradition and Ukrainian repertoire.

Mr. Stépan's performance, with piano accompaniment by Volodymyr Vynnytsky, at the Grazhda concert hall in Hunter, N.Y., on August 2 was reviewed in the Daily Freeman of Kingston, N.Y. (August 5 issue), by Kitty Montgomery.

An energetic man, Mr. Stépan sings with verve and command. Referring to the baritone's performace of art songs, the reviewer noted that "each note was a tone sculpture, suspended over that basso abyss possessed by great Slavic singers, and easing to upper registers that seemed equally infinite." The performace of a series of Ukrainian songs was characterized by a deeply felt interpretation, both ardent and lyrical, rendered with "sensitive and contemplative delivery."

Mr. Stépan was born in the village of Makhniv, near Liubachiv (formerly part of Halychyna, western Ukraine, presently Poland). After military service in Riga, Latvia (where he did a lot of singing), Mr. Stépan entered the music conservatory in Lviv where he studied under Petro Kolbin and Ostap Darchuk.

Mr. Stépan embarked on his career performing as soloist with the Lviv Philharmonic, and since 1983, as soloist with the Ivan Franko Opera Theater and Ballet.

Among his operatic roles are: Germont in Verdi's "La Traviata," Tonio and Silvio in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci," Alfio in Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana," Schaunard in Pucinni's "La Bohème," Shaklovity in Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina" and the title role in Rakhmaninoff's one-act opera "Aleko."

His Ukrainian repertoire includes the roles of Tuhar Vovk in Borys Liatoshynsky's "Zolotyi Obruch" (The Golden Ring), Mykola in Lysenko's "Natalka Poltavka" and Vita in Lysenko's "Rizdviana Nich" (Christmas Night), among others.

Throughout his career Mr. Stépan has worked closely with such Ukrainian composers/conductors/pedagogues as Stanyslav Liudkevych (1879-1979), Mykola Kolessa (1903-), Anatol Kos-Anatolsky (1909-1983), Dezyderii Zador (1912-1985), Yevhen Kozak (1907-), Myroslav Skoryk (1938-), Bohdan Yanivsky (1941-) and Yurii Laniuk (1957-).

Mr. Stépan has recorded with the National Orchestra of Folk Instruments and for the archival recordings of the Ukrainian Broadcasting Corp.

He has toured extensively in the republics of the former Soviet Union as well as in the U.S., Canada, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland and the former Czecho-Slovakia.

Since his arrival in the U.S., Mr. Stépan has performed at the Ukrainian National Association estate, Soyuzivka, in Kerhonkson, N.Y., the concert celebrating the sixth anniversary of Ukrainian independence held in Philadelphia, the Ukrainian festival in Holmdel, N.J., as well as for Ukrainian communities in Baltimore and Silver Spring, Md., Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and New York.

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