DATELINE NEW YORK: Cameos and quotes (04/12/98)

DATELINE NEW YORK: Cameos and quotes

by Helen Smindak

A touching "Butterfly"

In her fifth season as a leading soprano at the New York City Opera (NYCO), Oksana Krovytska has been receiving bravos from audiences and critics alike, especially after her performances last month in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly." The work was presented in the time-honored 1906 version, which includes revisions the composer undertook after the original score foundered at its La Scala premiere in 1904.

Among reviewers, The New York Times music critic Alan Kozinn was especially warm in his praise of Ms. Krovytska as Butterfly. Calling her "the principal attraction in the current run," Mr. Kozinn said the Ukrainian soprano's vocal agility, graceful movement and dramatic sensibility made the title character's ingenuousness "both believable and touching."

The March 10 review appeared under the headline "The Butterfly Puccini Wanted," with a subhead that read "A Ukrainian singer seems to know what the geisha must have felt."

Ms. Krovytska's work last September with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the CSO Chorus in Rossini's "Stabat Mater" - both as a soloist and in duet and ensemble performances with other soloists - garnered excellent reviews in the Denver press.

The Lviv-born singer also appeared in NYCO productions this season as Musetta in "La Boheme."

This summer, Ms. Krovytska is scheduled for a return engagement at the Kamptfal Festival in Gars, Austria, where she will sing Mimi in Puccini's "La Boheme." She is already booked for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (October 31), Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall (December 2) and a Christmas concert with North German Radio in Hannover.

Although the NYCO's 1998-1999 season is not completely set, Ms. Krovytska is already on the schedule to sing the title role in "Madama Butterfly."

A celebrated tenor

Gregg Whiteside and George Jellinek, two of New York classical radio's mightiest proponents of fine music, lauded Ukrainian tenor Ivan Kozlovsky during recent programs on WQXR-FM Radio.

During an intermission in a Metropolitan Opera broadcast on March 7, Mr. Whiteside, WQXR's chief announcer, discussed the love of opera with Dr. James H. Billington of the Library of Congress in Washington. Among the musical selections used during the interview was a recording of Mr. Kozlovsky singing the role of the Fool in a 1954 Bolshoi Theater production of "Boris Godunov." In his remarks Dr. Billington also noted "the famine that killed 7 million people in Ukraine."

Mr. Kozlovsky's voice was heard on a recent Jellinek program, in the Prince's airs in Rubinstein's "The Demon." Mr. Jellinek noted, "Mr. Kozlovsky is a celebrated Ukrainian tenor. I am a great admirer of his recordings, and I play many of them."

Lyric tenor Ivan Kozlovsky was born March 24, 1900, in Marianivka near Kyiv, and died December 23, 1993, in Moscow. A 1919 graduate of the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kyiv, he performed as a soloist in the Poltava Touring Music and Drama Theater, the Kharkiv and Sverdlovsk opera theaters, and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. His major roles were Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," the Fool in Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov," Levko in Rimsksy-Korsakov's "A May Night" and Bernedei in "Snow Maiden" by the same composer. He also appeared in the Ukrainian opera "Natalka Poltavka," "The Drowned Girl," "Kateryna" and "Zaporozhian Kozak beyond the Danube."

An Oscar winner

His voice is instantly recognizable on TV commercials touting the new Broadway musical "Ragtime," and he is seen on TV in reruns of movies like "Batman," "Dracula" and "Cops and Robbersons." But Jack Palance hasn't starred in any new flicks since "City Slickers II."

So what was he doing at the 70th annual Motion Pictures Academy Awards presentation a few weeks ago? Smiling affably as he posed for a "family" portrait of 70 Oscar winners. As the TV camera moved from A to Z through the gallery of winners and finally came to P, Mr. Palance, who recently turned 78, was shown full face on TV screens grinning disarmingly and flanked by two interesting vignettes - one as the tough-guy ranch foreman in "City Slickers," the other doing a series of one-arm push-ups at the 1992 awards ceremonies to celebrate his Best Supporting Actor Award.

During the evening, Mr. Palance was also shown in a flashback to the 1993 Academy Awards, a mighty rope over one shoulder as he pulled a gigantic wagon that brought "City Slickers" co-star Billy Crystal on stage to host the ceremonies.

A coast-to-coast Hopak

A suite of Ukrainian songs and dances that climaxes with the Hopak comprises the finale of this season's program by the highly acclaimed folk ensemble, the Duquesne University Tamburtizans. Presented coast-to-coast at colleges and high school auditoriums, opera houses, performing arts centers, civic centers and music halls, the program has been cheered by tens upon tens of thousands of spectators since its Town Hall opening here last October.

The suite includes two women's dances: "Rushnychok," a "khorovod" (the most ancient form of Ukrainian folk dance, combing movement, singing, instrumental music, speech and mime), and "Metelytsia" (Snowstorm), characterized by quick changes in motion, reminiscent of a winter storm. The men strut their stuff in Pavlo Virsky's "Povzunets," the whole dance done entirely in the squatting position, before the entire ensemble whirls into the spellbinding Hopak.

The Tamburitzans company currently includes seven Ukrainian students (eight, if you count Justin Greenswald, whose mother is Ukrainian). The seven - all alumni of Roma Pryma Bohachevsky's Syzokryli Dancers of New York - are Larysa Halaway, Andreja and Mark Kalyta, Lydia Kurylas, Victor Kutowy, Peter Osyf and Taras Posewa.

Credit for the Ukrainian suite choreography is given to Richard Hladio, a former Tamburitzan who, as the Rev. Hladio, is now using his formidable talents to shepherd the parish of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Hamilton, Ontario.

And more Hopak

The Red Star Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble brought Russian dances and the Ukrainian Hopak to the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts last month, displaying "an extraordinary lightness to the men's leaps, many executed with amazing spring and height." The observation was made by The New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff following the group's appearance in Brooklyn on March 8.

Ms. Kisselgoff pointed out "Carol of the Bells" as one of the art songs "that complemented the folk material and the folk-tinged contemporary compositions." Program notes described the song as an "intricate, ever so charming traditional tune from the (sic) Ukraine ... sung in the West as a carol at Christmas."

The five-column-wide photo above the review showed the dance ensemble in an action shot of - what else? - the Ukrainian Hopak.

Directed by Col. Anatoly Bazhalkin, a native of Zhytomyr, Ukraine, the Red Star Red Army ensemble has been performing the Russian-Ukrainian program throughout its current U.S. tour.

Ukrainian spelled correctly, Russians acknowledging the Hopak and "Carol of the Bells" as Ukrainian - can we ask for anything more? Well, maybe ... deleting that superfluous article in "the Ukraine."