Natal Vakhnianyn - "Kupala"

[Christopher]

Natal Vakhnianyn: 1841-1908

I was reading the Ukraine Live website where they have an article about Romantic composers from Ukraine. https://ukrainianlive.org/romanticism#article-in-english  I came to a paragraph which read "Among the wide genre variety of folk art, Ukrainian romantics were especially attracted to the epic and Ukrainian lyrical songs. The fascination with the heroic past was a characteristic feature of the romantic worldview, but for Ukrainian romantics' aesthetics, the national epic gained particular importance. Cossack themes became the basis of M.Lysenko's operas" "Taras Bulba" and "Aeneid" A. Vakhnyanyn's opera "Kupalo" is embodied in several cantatas and choirs by M. Lysenko, romances and choirs by K. Stetsenko and S. Lyudkevych."

While Lysenko, Stetsenko and Lyudkevych have been covered elsewhere on this forum, I had never heard of Vakhnyanyn.  A search for his name on this forum revealed he had never been mentioned by anyone else here.  Naturally I was curious to learn more and particularly to find out whether anything by him has been recorded.  I put his name in Ukrainian (Вахнянин) into youtube, and sure enough his entire opera Kupalo is there, performed by the Lviv opera in 2003:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjUa9cvvPU - Act I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j88WcqdCzU - Act II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkpJQo6AaPU - Act III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZr-tFySusM - Act IV

I haven't listened it through yet, but nevertheless thought to post it as it certainly falls within our era, and stylistically (having listened to the first 10 minutes) it fits too.

Vakhnianyn (or Vakhnyanyn) also has a wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_Vakhnianyn - apparently his first name was actually Anatol but he wrote under the pen name Natal.

Kupalo (the name of his opera) is a Slavic deity:  "God representing the mighty sun of summer solstice, but also goddess of joy and water. He is celebrated on Kupala Night with rituals of purification through water and fire. He is seldom represented as male, and the name Kupala or Kupalo is etymologically related to the verb kupati, "to wet". Solntse (simply "Sun", but often translated Phoebus) is another name of the goddess of the fully bright sun. The cult of Kupala was Christianised as that of John the Baptist."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_of_Slavic_religion


Ukraine Live, by the way, have an app that I would recommend: every time they upload a new piece of Ukrainian classical music, you get a notification on your phone. Rather clever.  https://ukrainianlive.org/install-the-app

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks Christopher. An extensive sample of the four videos reveals a nicely tuneful, attractive, if perhaps rather naïve folk opera, with lots of colourful ensembles and not a huge amount of action. It's in the 19th century "Russian" style (apologies to any Ukrainian readers) of Glinka and the later nationalists despite Vakhnyanyn's area of Ukraine being part of Austria-Hungary at the time.

[joelingaard]

Thanks Christopher. An extensive sample of the four videos reveals a nicely tuneful, attractive, if perhaps rather naïve folk opera, with lots of colourful ensembles and not a huge amount of action. It's in the 19th century "Russian" style (apologies to any Ukrainian readers) of Glinka and the later nationalists despite Vakhnyanyn's area of Ukraine being part of Austria-Hungary at the time.

Oh dear, this puts me off hearing it. Thankyou for your criticism, it sounds like not a masterpiece!

[Mark Thomas]

Don't let me do that. It's easy enough to sample it on YouTube via the links Christopher has provided, and you can form your own view.