Young soprano appears in series of performances (06/10/01)

Young soprano appears in series of performances

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Soprano Stefania Dovhan launched a series of four performances in May honoring the memory of the legendary American soprano Rosa Ponselle.

In a demanding recital program on May 12, Ms. Dovhan showed the talent that last year won her the gold medal at the Rosa Ponselle Young Classical Singers competition. The 21-year-old Ukrainian-born soloist performed a selection of operatic arias, art songs and folk songs, covering three centuries of musical tradition - from George Frederick Handel, to Francis Poulenc and Vasyl Barvinsky.

The recital, at the historic Dumbarton Church in the capital's Georgetown district, was sponsored by the Rosa Ponselle Foundation and the Cultural Fund of The Washington Group, an association of Ukrainian American professionals, under the patronage of the Embassy of Ukraine.

With Pin-Huey Wang accompanying on the piano, Ms. Dovhan began the recital program with arias from two Handel operas - Cleopatra's aria from "Giulio Cesare" and "Oh, had I Jubal's lyre" from "Joshua." They were followed by three songs by Franz Schubert and a scene and rondo from "Idamante" by Mozart.

The second half of the program included selections from Bellini and Rossini, two art songs by Glinka and Poulenc, and Barvinsky's "U mene buv kokhanyi, ridnyi krai." Ms. Dovhan also performed two Ukrainian folk songs - "Dyvlius ya na nebo" and "Handzia" - and concluded with "Stridono Lassu" from "I Pagliacci" by Leoncavallo.

Ms. Dovhan was born in Kyiv, where she entered the world of music with the help of her artistic family. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1995 and settled in the Baltimore area, where she attended the Baltimore School for the Arts and now is a scholarship student at the University of Maryland School of Music at College Park.

Introducing the young soloist to the audience, the president of the Rosa Ponselle Foundation, Elayne Duke, noted that Ms. Dovhan is richly blessed not only with talent, but with perseverance as well. She won the gold medal at the Young Singers competition on her third attempt.

Among those present at the May 12 recital were Ms. Dovhan's grandparents, who traveled from Kyiv to see her performances, and the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William Green Miller, and his wife, Suzanne Miller.

As part of the series of performances in memory of Rosa Ponselle, over the next two weeks Ms. Dovhan gave recitals at the Baltimore School for the Arts at the University of Maryland. The series concludes May 27 with a special Memorial High Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption, where she will be joined by another former Rosa Ponselle Competition Gold Medalist, Kenneithia Mitchell.

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A review of Ms. Dovhan's recital at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park on May 20, appeared in the May 22 issue of The Baltimore Sun. The paper's music critic Tim Smith, in a piece titled "U of M student exhibits her vocal prowess," offered a detailed critical review of each of the young soprano's selections.

While noting that Ms. Dovhan's program "was perhaps too wide-ranging for her own good," the critic characterized Ms. Dovhan as having "a bright, flexible voice, capable of considerable power," adding that "she can communicate a text with clarity and feeling." The overall effect of her performance was deemed to be one of "engaging results," attesting to Ms. Dovhan's "vocal and dramatic potential."

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