Serhiy Yuriyovych Levyk (real name: Israel Yulianovych; *28 November 1883 - †5 September 1967) was a Ukrainian opera singer-baritone, musicologist, translator from French and German, and teacher of Jewish origin.
Biography.
He was born on 28 November 1883 in the town of Bila Tserkva, Vasylkiv district, Kyiv province of the Russian Empire (now Kyiv region of Ukraine).
From the age of nine, he lived in Berdychiv (now the district centre of Zhytomyr region).
Since 1901, he has been engaged in translation activities.
From 1907, he studied at the Kyiv Higher Opera and Drama Courses of Mykhailo Medvedev.
From 1908 to 1923, he gave concerts.
During the First World War, he was a member of the public organisation "Union of Cities".
From 1909 he lived in St. Petersburg, where he performed as a soloist in local theatres. In particular, until 1912 - at the Opera House of the People's House. From 1912 to 1916 - at the Musical Drama Theatre. He toured Voronezh, Minsk, Vilno, Kharkiv (1910), Kyiv, as well as the North Caucasus and Crimea. At the same time, from 1913 he worked as a reviewer in the periodicals.
From 1917, he was a member of the board of the Union of Stage Artists and a member of the board of entertainment enterprises.
From 1922, he was the chairman of the Commission for Assistance to the Unemployed.
From 1929 to 1939, he was a correspondent for the Parisian magazine Le Ménestrel[fr] in the USSR.
One of the organisers of the Trade Union of Art Workers (Rosmis).
Until 1930, he was the head of the Drama Union.
From 1938 to 1939, he was a lecturer in stage skills at the Leningrad Conservatory.
He participated in the work of the Leningrad branch of the USSR Composers' Union.
He died on 5 September 1967 in Leningrad.
Creativity.
He had a flexible, strong voice of a wide range; acting talent. He sought to reveal not only the vocal aspect, but also the psychological content of the works he performed.
He has performed more than 30 opera roles. Among his partners on the opera stage were Lidia Lipkovska, Leonid Sobinov, and Fyodor Chaliapin.
At concerts, he performed with particular success the romances of Modest Mussorgsky.
More than 60 of Levik's parts were recorded on gramophone discs (Pate, Zonophon, Lyrofon, Orpheon, RAOG).
Levyk's performing talent was highly appreciated by Felix Blumenfeld, Oleksandr Hlazunov, Volodymyr Dranishnikov, Ivan Yershov, Yosyp Lapytskyi, Mykola Malko and others.
He is the author of the book of memoirs about many Ukrainian opera singers "Zapisky opernoho pyvnytsia" (Russian: "Notes of an opera singer"), which was published in 1955.
He is the author of scientific works on vocal performance, publications in the Soviet and Western press, librettos of operas (in particular, Cyrano de Bergerac by Boris Asafiev, Dawn by Danylo Frankel), translations from French and German into Russian of librettos of 70 operas (in particular, Il Trovatore, Don Carlos, La bohème masquerade, Otello by Giuseppe Verdi, Carmen by Georges Bizet, Salome by Richard Strauss, Turandot by Giacomo Puccini), operettas (Jacques Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann), and a number of oratorios (The Four Seasons by Joseph Haydn by Joseph Haydn, Samson, Judas Maccabee by George Frideric Handel), poetic texts of romances, short stories, etc. (some of them were published in the newspaper "Kyivska Mysl" in 1901-1905).
Repertoire
Borys Godunov in the opera of the same name
Volodymyr Halytskyi (he prepared the part in 1 day), Prince Ihor in "Prince Ihor"
Kochubey, Mazepa in Mazepa
Onegin in Eugene Onegin
Robert in "Iolanthe"
Demon in the opera of the same name
Figaro in The Barber of Seville
Rigoletto in the opera of the same name
Germon in "La Traviata"
Amonasro in "Aida"
Klingzor in Parsifal
Valentin in "Faust"
Tonio in "Pagliacci"
Scarpia in Tosca and others
Bibliography
Vocal art in France // Life of art (Petrograd) - 1923. - No. 5-8.
Opera translation: Its Practice and Technique // Proceedings of the Leningrad Research Institute of Theatre and Music (Leningrad, 1945).
On chamber singing // Soviet music. - 1948. - No. 6.
Chaliapin (pages from the book "Through the eyes and ears of a singer") // Soviet music. - 1948. - No. 10.
Chaliapin on the concert stage // Soviet music. - 1950. - No. 2.
Notes of an opera singer. From the history of the Russian opera stage. - Moscow: State Publishing House "Art", 1955. - 474 p. - 10 thousand copies.
Ivan Ershov // Soviet music. - 1957. - No. 12.
Wagner's operas on the St. Petersburg stage // Soviet music. - 1958. - No. 2.
Meeting Wagner in Russia // Soviet music. - 1959. - No. 10.
Notes of an opera singer [Archived 13 July 2021 at the Wayback Machine]. 2nd, revised and supplemented - Moscow: Izdatelstvo "Art", 1962. - 714 p.
A Quarter of a Century in Opera: Memoirs - Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Iskusstvo", 1970. 536 p.
