Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theater does not give performances, but does not stop work

uneasy simple

“Since February 2022, we have been forced to work behind closed doors, without showing performances to the audience,” the general director of the Donbass Opera, People’s Artist of the DPR Evgeny Denisenko, told the MK correspondent. – But rehearsals of repertoire performances go on daily. Work is underway on a large-scale production of “Prince Igor” by Alexander Borodin, timed to coincide with the 90th anniversary of our theater. This premiere was scheduled for March, in which we involved almost the entire team – opera soloists, soloists and ballet dancers, a choir and a symphony orchestra, as well as employees of the artistic and production part of the theater. Work is also underway on premieres of chamber opera performances. These are Offenbach’s “Key on the Pavement (Husband at the Door)” and Khrennikov’s “Golden Calf”.

– Evgeny Ivanovich, if your colleagues do not have the opportunity to play at home, only tours remain?

– Yes, in March, as part of the “Big Tours” program, we visited Rostov-on-Don, Sochi, Stavropol, Krasnodar, Volgograd and showed the ballet “A Thousand and One Nights” by Fikret Amirov and the ballet extravaganza “The Kid and Carlson” by Mancini, Chaplin, Duke and others. In September, we took part in the Seventh Festival of Musical Theaters “See the Music” and on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater presented Verdi’s comic opera “The Love Adventures of Sir John Falstaff” and Grieg’s ballet “Peer Gynt”. And now the theater is preparing for a trip to the northern cities of Russia.

— And when do you hope to open the doors for Donetsk spectators?

— Honestly, we do not know when we will be able to show performances. As soon as the situation in the region stabilizes and peace comes. We ourselves are suffering a lot and we want this to happen as soon as possible. And I can assure you that everyone in the theater is ready to meet the audience and perform in front of them even tomorrow.

— Did the Donbass-Opera suffer material and human losses in this difficult year?

“There are losses, and, unfortunately, there are also victims. This year, our stage engineer Nikolai Kramskov died defending his homeland. In August, ballet teacher Galina Vasilievna Volodina and 12-year-old student of the Vadim Pisarev School of Choreography Ekaterina Kutubaeva died almost near the theater during the shelling of the central part of Donetsk. It’s hard and scary.

Our building was also damaged. 38 windows were broken. They have already been replaced. From shudders, holes appeared in the roof and the original stucco molding was damaged. Due to the difficult situation, 38 people left the theater.

— And how do you manage to make up for the loss of personnel?

– We are recruiting new personnel from among students and graduates of the Donetsk Musical Academy. S.S. Prokofiev, Moscow and St. Petersburg choreographic schools, as well as from among the graduates of the School of Choreographic Mastery.

For the suit to sit

In a situation where at any second the temple of Melpomene could be under fire, it is important to save not only people, but also scenery, costumes and theatrical accessories. On this topic, we talked with Oksana Kubekina, the head of the sewing workshop.

– Costumes, scenery and props are in the theater – in storage. There is no special bunker. We cannot additionally secure them – we ourselves are here during the shelling, we do not stop working for a minute.

— Oksana Gennadievna, how complex and creative is the process of tailoring a suit? How many years has he been “living” and what secrets have been found in Donetsk for long-term storage of theater accessories?

— Tailoring is a laborious process, and not only for me, but also for the people who do this work. Before the suit is put into production, a sketch is drawn, fabric and accessories are selected. Only after this does the cutting begin. We do everything by hand!

Costumes have their own service life, opera, for example, “lives” longer than ballet – in the opera, of course, they dance, but not like in ballet. And to extend the life of costumes, we don’t have any special tricks – it is simply erased, and also only by hand. And some parts are replaced so that the thing always looks new.

Why is this creative work? The fact is that with any costume you can either raise the artist, help him get into character, or simply “kill” him.

– What skill can a costume designer do without?

“Our work involves more than one skill. Before you take on any character or picture, you need, as we say, to go through the literature. Yes, many performances, say, Spartak, have classical examples. But in each new interpretation, one has to resort to both history and the history of the cut of the costume by era.

No time to chill

We are done with the costumes. It remains to find out what difficulties artists have to face. They also need constant practice, otherwise, like athletes without training, they will simply lose their shape.

“For a vocalist, this is especially important, we must constantly be in good shape – this is our responsibility to the audience,” the soloist of the Donetsk Opera Svetlana Maleeva confirmed our guess.

“If you miss a week or a month, you naturally lose shape. You just have to rehearse! And it’s good that we constantly have orchestral, choreographic rehearsals, lessons with accompanists, where we “polish” works.

– Svetlana Valerievna, it is clear that every day in Donetsk is front-line everyday life and holidays. But what does your daily routine look like?

— Like an ordinary Donetsk resident. My child studies remotely at school (the shelling is very strong, our children do not go to school). We get up, start doing our homework, feed my son and run to the theater, to the rehearsal of Prince Igor. Plus, I’m now being introduced to the play “Pharmacist” by Haydn. The work is in full swing, there is no time to cool off. And I spend the evening with my family, at dinner. And every day for us is the expectation of the world and prayer for it.

— How many years have you been working at the Donbass Opera?

– I came in 1995, still very young, behind me there was only a music school. I started working as an artist of the choir under the direction of Lyudmila Streltsova (chief choirmaster of the theater, People’s Artist of Ukraine and laureate of the Taras Shevchenko National Prize. – B.S.). I developed as a vocalist and as an actor. And then she entered the Donetsk Academy of Music for a vocal class. After graduating from the conservatory, I was accepted into the trainee group of the soloist workshop. In my life I thank God, I thank the people I met on my way, and due to a combination of circumstances, it happened that I had to go out to sing the play “La Traviata” without rehearsals. The artist fell ill, and I urgently needed to replace her. The main part of Violetta was learned by me at the conservatory, and when I sang it, I immediately became a soloist.

— Are you a happy person? What do you consider the main achievement and what do you want to achieve?

– Yes, I am a happy person, over the years there have been parties that I did not even dream of. This is the repertoire of Russian composers, and Donizetti, and Verdi, and Puccini. The part of Musetta from La bohème and my favorite is the part of Liu from the opera Turandot. And I also love Tchaikovsky very much, I dream of singing the part of Liza in The Queen of Spades.

– Why is she interesting to you?

– No one will sing the way a Russian person sings Tchaikovsky. This is a sensual composer, each note, each overtone reflects our inner state, our emotions.

– When was the last time you went on stage in front of an empty auditorium?

— Since the beginning of this year, we have a very busy schedule of performances. January is a month of holidays, there are a lot of spectators in the hall. We had operas, operettas and fairy tales. I sang then in The Merry Widow and in The Bat. But, most importantly, in September this year we opened our 91st season on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. It was the play “The Love Adventures of Sir John Falstaff”, where I performed the part of Alice. It was a very important event in my life, the life of our theater and the entire republic.