DATELINE NEW YORK: The thrill of first nighting (10/12/03)

DATELINE NEW YORK: The thrill of first nighting

by Helen Smindak

Autumn in New York, as composer/lyricist Vernon Duke eloquently phrased it, is so inviting; it brings the thrill of first nighting, and shimmering clouds and glittering crowds in canyons of steel. In this setting, the fall season ushers in another exciting round of cultural events, with Ukrainian performers and artists ready to capture public interest and cheers at numerous centers around town.

New York City Opera diva Oksana Krovytska returns to the NYCO stage after a two-year absence to sing the role of the young slave girl Liu in Puccini's "Turandot," a role she performed to great acclaim during nine consecutive years with the company. The first-night performance arrives on October 28.

Two days earlier, Ms. Krovytska will be among the shining luminaries who grace the stage of the Fashion Institute of Technology in a musical tribute to Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko on the 160th anniversary of his birth. Featured in the concert program will be the Dumka Chorus of New York, under the direction of Vasyl Hrechynsky, with special guest artist tenor Mykhailo Kreven of Ivano-Frankivsk, and guest artists cellist Natalia Khoma, pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky, tenor Roman Tsymbala and baritone Oleh Chmyr-Opalinsky; with introductory remarks by Dr. Taras Filenko and National Artists of Ukraine Ivan Bernatsky, concert emcee.

American Ballet Theater's principal soloists Maxim Belotserkovsky, Irina Dvorovenko and Vladimir Malakhov will soar and twirl during ABT's fall run at City Center. All three are scheduled to perform in the opening night gala on October 22, appearing in highlights from the 2003 City Center season. After the curtain falls, they will join other ABT dancers at the Plaza Hotel for a lavish dinner celebration that's known as one of New York's most glamorous events.

In the gala performance, Mr. Belotserkovsky will appear in "Symphonic Variations" (his first time in the role), Ms. Dvorovenko will dance in the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Mr. Malakhov will perform in the company premiere of "Le Grand Pas de Deux." They will appear in various works until the season's closing performance on November 9.

At the Ukrainian Institute of America, stunning works by several Ukrainian artists will be showcased this season in a series of art exhibitions; the first exhibit, which opened October 2 and closes this weekend, spotlights photographs, collages and assemblages by William Michael Dubetz of New York. Landscapes and still lifes by Yuriy Savchenko of Ukraine will go on view later this month.

A showing of new work by Ilona Sochynsky, depicting personal imagery, is scheduled to open in early December. Titled "Reflections and Permutations," the exhibit represents Ms. Sochynsky's attempt to analyze the ebb and flow of the creative process, and evaluate her creative output in order to explore new directions using new materials. She asks, "Can some sense be made of a fragment? Can it permute into something that has meaning for me?"

Just announced, the institute's "Music at the Institute" series will begin with the October 25 concert featuring pianist Mykola Suk and five musician friends in a program that will include Vadym Zhuravytsky's "Ukrainian Symphony in G Minor." Other MATI concerts this fall will feature the Leipzig String Quartet from Germany in November and pianist Jerome Lowenthal and the Avalon String Quartet in December.

Slava Gerulak, director of the Mayana Gallery in the East Village, is preparing an exhibit honoring Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky that will feature photos and reproductions of Oleksa Novakivsky's work. It should be ready to open November 1, and a showing of linocuts by Vitaly Lytvyn is planned for later that month.

The poignant drama "Tears of the Virgin Mary" is "not to be missed," says The Ukrainian Weekly columnist Myron B. Kuropas. He calls it a powerful performance that reveals the horrors of Ukraine's Terror-Genocide 70 years ago. It will be presented here at St. George Ukrainian Catholic School on October 25 by the Yurii Drohobych Drama Theater of Lviv Oblast, a group of professional actors now touring the United States.

Season openers

"Dateline New York" will be on hiatus from now until the end of the year, thus the opening notations in today's column emphasize upcoming events, to give readers a bird's-eye view of what's coming in the next few months.

The season is already in full swing. Two excellent solo exhibits at the Ukrainian Institute of America (due to close this week) offer the fine etchings and encaustica of Oleh Denysenko of Lviv and still lifes by Lubomyr Kuzma of Tannersville, N.Y., a native of the Lviv region who became the founder and teacher of an art school in New York (1956 to 1984) and head of the Association of Ukrainian Artists in America (1964 to 1973).

The Kuzma retrospective, a salute to the artist's 90th birthday last May, focuses on his leading genre - still life - much of which shows his love of nature and an influence from the style of Dutch still life in the Baroque age. In this work, his color palette is restrained, while paintings that reveal a connection between objects and life show a broad choice of colors.

Mr. Denysenko, one of the few Ukrainian printmakers to attract international attention, engages the viewer with an unending theater of delightful magic puppets, strange clowns, self-sacrificing knights, and comical kings and queens from the world of toys. The precise, sharp profiles in his etchings are engraved into copper and zinc plates, then transferred to a dampened sheet of Hahnemuhle paper.

Sculptor Tamara Zahaykevich, whose work was included in the group show "Back to Black" last summer, is currently taking part in a group show in Greenwich Village. Her diminutive sculptures, constructed in various colors of foam core and held together by hot glue, are included in the show "YOU," a curatorial project by Lisa Kirk, at 110 W. 14 St. (buzzer No. 1, third floor). Ms. Zahaykevich says the show can be visited Wednesday to Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., until November 1.

Doubleday Books has published a new novel by Chuck Palahniuk, best-selling author of "Lullaby," "Choke" and "Fight Club" (his first novel was made into a movie by director David Fincher and starred Brad Pitt and Edward Norton). Mr. Palahniuk, a University of Oregon graduate who lives and works in Portland, inherited his Ukrainian surname from his father's side of the family.

The story: A painter named Misty Wilmot keeps a journal of her life on Waytansea Island as her husband lies in a coma after a failed suicide attempt. The novel has been described as "hypnotic as a poised cobra." Janet Maslin of The New York Times says the author is "capable of the last-minute switching of gears that can turn a darkly ominous story into a source of heart-tugging inspiration."

The Ukrainian Museum, though working with restricted space until it moves into a sleek three-story home next year, nevertheless received a very nice write-up in Joseph Berger's feature story in The New York Times "Ethnic Museums Abounding." Mr. Berger described the display of Easter eggs, ritual cloths, folk costumes and woven holiday breads, noting that the full range of the museum's thousands of paintings, ceramics, festive attire and historical photographs cannot be put on view. The museum's seasonal embroidery and bead-stringing courses are well under way; workshops in Christmas traditions and traditional Ukrainian ornaments are set for December.

The gypsy punk rock band Gogol Bordello, led by Eugene Hutz, is featured in a W.W. Norton publication titled "Crossing the BLVD," a cross-media project that documents and portrays the lives, images, sounds and stories of new immigrants and refugees who have lived in the borough of Queens - the most ethnically diverse locality in the United States. The project's CD includes two tracks from Gogol Bordello.

The band combines elements of traditional Ukrainian sounds with storytelling, elaborate props and complex stage sets. Recently returned from a European tour that included a stop in Kyiv, the band headlined Irving Plaza for the first time to a sold-out crowd on September 20, and added its eccentric musical touch to the launching of "Crossing the BLVD" on the 24th.

Actor John Spencer, nominated for the Emmy's best supporting actor in a drama series, didn't win this year, but he was up on stage with the rest of the cast of "The West Wing" when it was named the best drama series of the 2002-2003 season. Mr. Spencer plays Leo McGarry, the chief of staff for President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) of "West Wing."

Talent from overseas

A surge of Ukrainian talent from overseas has brought us soloists like prize-winning tenor Artem Zorin, who is of Azerbaijani-Russian parentage. Born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, the soulful-eyed 18-year-old singer (he reminds us of a young Frank Sinatra) entertained guests with Ukrainian and Italian songs at the Ukrainian Institute's cabaret-style season opener on September 27. A week later he presented a full evening of classical, variety and folk songs at the same venue. Though he has a repertoire of over 100 songs in eight languages, plus two CDs, he says he'd like to stay and study in this country.

Young pianist Oleksandr Chugay, one of three top winners in the fifth International Competition for Young Pianists in memory of Vladimir Horowitz held in Kyiv last spring, showed off his talents at Merkin Concert Hall last Saturday. A student at the Mykola Lysenko Secondary Special Music Boarding School in Kyiv, the 16-year-old interpreted Rachmaninoff and Chopin compositions and Revutsky's "Prelude" during a concert that included the two other winners, one from China, the other from Belarus. The event was part of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Horowitz, who was born and educated in Kyiv and is considered a musical giant of the 20th century.

The Ukrainian Ladies' Ensemble from Sydney, Australia, a 25-member vocal group directed by Ukrainian Canadian singer Oksana Rohatyn-Wasylyk, delighted an audience at St. George School on October 5 with their folk song interpretations. Along with accompanist Natalka Zinchenko (piano) and Ihor Kleibert (accordion), the ensemble is on a four-city tour in the U.S.

And then there's National Artist of Ukraine Viktor Pavlik, who's bringing his songs, musicians and dancers to the Fashion Institute this very weekend in a show called "I know everything."

Marginal notes

Metropolitan Opera stars have not been mentioned here, but that's because they're not on the Met agenda this year. Paul Plishka, in his 37th record-breaking year with the Met, will mark his season first-nighter on January 6, 2004, in the opera "Werther" and will appear later in the season in "Boris Godunov." Sergei Koptchak will open in "Die Walküre" on March 29, while Maria Guleghina will begin performances in "Nabucco" on April 17.

A newly opened exhibit at the New York Public Library, which I have not yet visited, bears looking into. "Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825," is described by Richard Lourie in The New York Times as an exhibition that deals with Russia's emergence from subjugation and obscurity to become a presence and a power in the world. It includes a companion book, a website, a lecture series, symposiums and a film series.

Mr. Lourie writes that the earliest civilization, Kievan Russia [sic], was vibrant and progressive; he states that "the Russians took Christianity from the Greek Orthodox Byzantines" and quotes Grand Prince Vladimir as saying: "The Russian cannot bear to think/of life devoid of all strong drink." One of the exhibition curators, Edward Kasinec of the library's Slavic division, is of Carpatho-Rusyn origin and should be well informed on Ukrainian history. Are Mr. Kasinec and the two co-curators counting the Kyiv-Rus' era as part of Russian history, or has Mr. Lourie misunderstood the term "Rus?"

Helen Smindak's e-mail address is [email protected].

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