Semen Hulak-Artemovsky
Encyclopedia
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, singer (baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
), actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, and dramatist who lived and worked in Imperial Russia.
He is known mainly for his comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
Zaporozhets za Dunayem
Zaporozhets za Dunayem
Zaporozhets za Dunayem Beyond the Danube, also referred to as Cossacks in Exile) is a Ukrainian comic opera with spoken dialogue in three acts with music and libretto by the composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky . The orchestration has subsequently been rewritten by composers such as Reinhold Glière and...
(A Zaporozhian
Zaporozhian Host
The Zaporozhian Cossacks or simply Zaporozhians were Ukrainian Cossacks who lived beyond the rapids of the Dnieper river, the land also known as the Great Meadow in Central Ukraine...
(Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
) Beyond the Danube), as well as for his dramatic talent and his powerful, rich baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
voice. He was the nephew of the poet Petro Hulak-Artemovsky and a close friend of Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...
.
Biography
Semen Hulak-Artemovsky was born in Horodyshche a city in present-day UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
(at the time a part of Imperial Russia) to the family of a priest, and went on to study at the Kiev Theological Seminary from 1835-1838. Having gained the attention of Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka , was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music...
, the young Semen was brought to the capital of the empire, St Petersburg, in 1838 to receive vocal training directly from Glinka, as well as entry into the Imperial Chapel Choir. The following year, Hulak-Artemovsky left to continue his studies in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. Towards the end of his stay in that country, he began performing opera in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. Upon his return to St. Petersburg in 1842, Semen Hulak-Artemovsky became a soloist of the Imperial Opera at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre
Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre
The Saint Petersburg Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was a theatre in Saint Petersburg.- History :It was built in 1783 to Antonio Rinaldi's Neoclassical design as the Kamenny Theatre. It was rebuilt in 1802 and renamed the Bolshoi, but burned down in 1811. The building was restored in 1818, and...
, a position he held for 22 years. In 1852 and 1853 he sang roles in Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
's first two operas, Dmitry Donskoy
Dmitry Donskoy (opera)
Dmitry Donskoy , also known as The Battle of Kulikovo was the first opera written by Anton Rubinstein. It was in 3 acts, with a libretto by Count Vladimir Sollogub and Vladimir Zotov, based on a drama by Dmitry Ozerov...
and Fomka the Fool
Fomka the Fool
Fomka the Fool is a one-act opera by Anton Rubinstein to a libretto by M. L. Mikhaylov. It was given its only performance in 1853.-Background:...
.
Hulak-Artemovsky performed at the Bolshoi Theatre
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
from 1864 to 1865. He performed over fifty operatic roles during his career, including Ruslan in Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila, Masetto in Mozart's
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, as well as Antonio and Lord Ashton in Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
.
A composer of operas, as well as vocal and instrumental music, Semen Hulak-Artemovsky composed his seminal work Zaporozhets za Dunayem in 1864, after completing the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
in 1862.
His friendship with Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko
Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko -Life:Born into a serf family of Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko in the village of Moryntsi, of Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire Shevchenko was orphaned at the age of eleven...
began in the fall of 1838, after a chance meeting in St. Petersburg. The lifelong friendship continued during Shevchenko's incarceration and subsequent release, and was said to have strongly influenced Hulak-Artemovsky's view of the world. He dedicated his song A Maple Tree Stands Over The River ' onMouseout='HidePop("85046")' href="/topics/Romanization_of_Ukrainian">translit.
Romanization of Ukrainian
The romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....
Stoyit' yavir nad vodoyu) to Shevchenko.
Semen Hulak-Artemovsky died at the age of 60 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Operas
- Ukrainian Wedding ' onMouseout='HidePop("60989")' href="/topics/Romanization_of_Ukrainian">translit.Romanization of UkrainianThe romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....
Ukrayins’ke vesillya, , translit.Romanization of RussianRomanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet...
Ukrainskaya svad'ba) was first performed in 1851, with Semen Hulak-Artemovsky in the role of the father-in-law. - Ivan Kupala Eve ' onMouseout='HidePop("38189")' href="/topics/Romanization_of_Ukrainian">translit.Romanization of UkrainianThe romanization or Latinization of Ukrainian is the representation of the Ukrainian language using Latin letters. Ukrainian is natively written in its own Ukrainian alphabet, a variation of Cyrillic....
Nich na Ivana Kupala, , translit.Romanization of RussianRomanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet...
Noch' nakanune Ivana Kupala) was first performed in 1852 - Zaporozhets za DunayemZaporozhets za DunayemZaporozhets za Dunayem Beyond the Danube, also referred to as Cossacks in Exile) is a Ukrainian comic opera with spoken dialogue in three acts with music and libretto by the composer Semen Hulak-Artemovsky . The orchestration has subsequently been rewritten by composers such as Reinhold Glière and...
' onMouseout='HidePop("64759")' href="/topics/Zaporozhian_Host">ZaporozhianZaporozhian HostThe Zaporozhian Cossacks or simply Zaporozhians were Ukrainian Cossacks who lived beyond the rapids of the Dnieper river, the land also known as the Great Meadow in Central Ukraine...
(CossackCossackCossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
) Beyond the Danube, also referred to as Cossacks in Exile) was premiered in St. Petersburg, with Semen Hulak-Artemovsky in the role of Karas'.