Ukrainian singer and vocal teacher, successor of the vocal school of O. Myshuga and M. Mykisha.
Biography
The guy is from a Don Cossack family (Boguchar), his father is a beekeeper, his mother is a housewife. From childhood, he read a lot, drew, from the sixth grade during those terrible famine years he tried to collect his own library, and in general, he was an avid collector from a young age. He dreamed of becoming a history teacher. From 1936 to 1941, he studied at the Bogucharsk Pedagogical School, where he began to sing in a jazz ensemble led by Doroshenko. Despite the fact that he later received two secondary and two higher educations, Vasyl Ivanovych liked to repeat that if it was possible, he would study all his life.
In his youth, V. I. Openka was very lucky to have fateful people, such as Matvii Serhiyovych Barinov (in the past, a violinist of the Bolshoi Theater), a music teacher at a pedagogical school, who actually blessed him on the path of a musician, as well as People's Artist of Ukraine, professor Mykhailo Venediktovych Mykysha at the Kyiv Conservatory and Maryan Krushelnytskyi, director of the theater studio at the P. I. Tchaikovsky Kyiv State Conservatory. After graduating from the Boguchar Pedagogical School in 1941, V. I. Openko was assigned to the Far East (Kam'yanka Dalekoskhidna) to teach at a boarding school for orphans. Here he was supposed to work simply as a primary school teacher, but considering the fact that there was a catastrophic shortage of teachers, Vasyl Ivanovych taught almost all subjects, even mathematics in secondary schools.
In the summer of 1942, V. I. Openka was drafted into the ranks of the Soviet Army. During the war, he repeatedly participated in concerts on the front line. After the end of the war, V. I. Openko hesitated for some time: what to do next, to enter a pedagogical institute, as he had dreamed of in childhood, or to start professionally engaged in vocals, as M. S. Barinov suggested to him. In 1945, he entered the Voronezh Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of History. But the doubts did not last long. In 1946, Vasyl Ivanovych took his documents from the institute and in the same year entered the Voronezh Music School. In 1946-1949, he studied singing with the teacher N. Sinitsina, and from 1949, Vasyl Ivanovych was a student of the Kyiv State Conservatory named after P. I. Tchaikovsky in the class of O. Darchuk (1949-1952), then - professor M. Mykysha. In his next "Notes of a singer and vocal teacher", Vasyl Ivanovich will write: "Everything that I know and am able to do as a teacher today is all thanks to Mykhailo Venediktovich."
Poltava period of life
After graduating from the conservatory, Vasyl Ivanovych was allowed to work at the Kyiv Radio Committee, sing at the Opera Studio of the Kyiv Conservatory, and was offered to join the choir of the Kyiv Opera House. But he chose Poltava - the historical center, about which he had read so much in his time. So, in 1954, V.I. Openko arrived in Poltava by assignment and the next period of his life (1954-1991) was associated with Poltava, the Poltava evening school for working youth and the Poltava music school named after M. V. Lysenko. During the twelve years of his work at the Poltava Evening School, 15 of Vasyl Ivanovich's students entered the leading conservatories of the Soviet Union without graduating from the music school. Taking into account the fact that the music school did not provide such personnel, in 1966 V. I. Openka was invited to work at the Poltava Music School named after M. V. Lysenko and the following 20 years of work (1966-1986) at the school were the most fruitful.
Teaching activity
During 1975-1976, Vasyl Ivanovych participated in All-Union conferences on the problems of vocal pedagogy on the basis of his scientific and methodological work "Methodology of work with beginner vocalists" (the conferences were held on the basis of the Voronezh Institute of Arts and the Astrakhan Conservatory, where most of his students entered). After that, he was offered to teach at both conservatories. A heart attack in November 1976 marked decisive changes in his life.
Vasyl Ivanovych consistently continued to embody the ideas of his predecessors Myshuga-Mikisha, enriching them with his own vocal experience. Separate pages of the work "Methodology of work with beginner vocalists" are devoted to the problems of correctly identifying the type of voice and getting rid of natural and acquired flaws. In the definition of certain concepts of vocal terminology (cantilena, sound filling, voice type, etc.), V.I. Openko made his definition more understandable for a beginner vocalist, Vasyl Ivanovych attached great importance to the selection of a beginner vocalist's repertoire and vocal exercises.
The methodology of V.I. Openka was distinguished by the primacy of the principle of persuasion over the principle of demandingness, the absence of pressure from the teacher on the student with his authority, the attempt to combine individual classes with collective ones and achieve maximum mutual respect and mutual understanding between the teacher and his students: "A mutual understanding and mutual trust must be achieved between the student and the teacher, only under this condition the work is fruitful. If the teacher approaches his students too stereotypically, he puts pressure on thema kind authority and does not give the student the opportunity to find out together with the teacher the reasons that hinder the student's development, then the student will start looking for them on his own and will get into a blind, inescapable vocal corner. In vocal education, conviction, tact, poise and endurance of the teacher are the key to successful learning of singing for beginners" [“Methodology of work with beginner vocalists", c. 25].
It is worth mentioning that V.I. Openko had a brilliant acting talent, could play both the most tragic and the most comic role. It was not for nothing that Maryan Krushelnytskyi, who worked with conservatory students in the opera studio, once offered Vasyl Ivanovych to transfer to the Karpenko-Kary Institute, but he refused: "If I had to start all over again, I would be engaged in vocals again, the only sacred thing for me" [ "Notes of a singer and vocal teacher, starting from 1946 to the present day", sheet. 145]. In his homeland, in Boguchar and Pidkolodnivka, he and his friends staged plays more than once, among which I remember Ostrovsky's "Innocent and Guilty" and Shevchenko's "Nazar Stodol" and he himself performed the main roles. Before the performances, he himself made sabers and swords from wood.
Works
In the vocal works of V. Openka, the idea of complex education of a singer, raised at the school of Myshuga-Mykisha, found its continuation, which consisted of the following:
firstly, increasing the general cultural development of a person who has come to study vocals, introducing him to the best examples of world classics, selecting the appropriate repertoire, listening and analyzing the performance of works on gramophone records and attending concerts;
secondly, the gradual development and self-development of the vocalist, the inadmissibility of artificial acceleration of the tempo, extremely careful attitude to the voice;
thirdly, the combination of music and the artistic word in vocal development, giving great importance to poetry, recitation and artistic illustration.
In the private archive of Vasyl Ivanovich's wife, Halyna Yakivna Openko, there are two manuscripts of the works of the Poltava vocal maestro - "Methodology of working with beginning vocalists: from the experience of pedagogical work in the evening music school in Poltava" (completed in 1965) and "Notes of a singer and vocal teacher from 1946 to the present day" (1974-1984). In "Notes of a singer and vocal teacher, from 1946 to the present day" (1974-1984) V.I. Openko reveals himself as a prominent art critic and music critic, it's a pity that he had little cooperation with the Poltava press and leading music magazines on this issue. One of the most vivid memories is his response to the speech of O.S. Pirogov at the Kyiv Opera House on April 29, 1954. About his appointment, V. I. Openko wrote: "The conclusion is summed up." Is he successful, is it possible to look people in the eye with a clear conscience? Who knows him! I would like my students to remember me in the future, as T. G. Shevchenko said, "in a gentle, quiet word..." [“Notes of a singer and vocal teacher, starting from 1946 to the present day”, sheet. 146-149].
"Methodology of working with beginner vocalists: from the experience of pedagogical work in the evening music school in Poltava" (completed in 1965).
"Notes of a singer and vocal teacher, from 1946 to the present day" (1974-1984).
Methodical articles.
Outstanding student singers
L. Yurchenko, People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (she is also a laureate of the International Competition in Barcelona, gold medal);
A. Kalaida, laureate of the All-Union Soviet Song Contest (gold medal), entered the Moscow Conservatory;
E. Oparina - soloist of the Perm Opera;
M. Dyachok and T. Kush - soloists of the Voronezh Opera;
T. Boboshko (Kharkiv Opera);
S. Kolesnikova (Kyiv Opera);
H. Vyhodsky - soloist of the New Israel Opera (Tel Aviv);
I. Pererva (graduate of the Moscow Conservatory) - soloist of the Small Opera Theater of Sanka-Petersburg;
O. Gubina (graduate of the Gnesiny Institute) - soloist of the Borys Porovsky Theater (Moscow);
O. Vishnevska (graduate of the Odessa Conservatory) - soloist of the Odessa Opera and Philharmonic;
V. Openko – Honored Artist of Ukraine, soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine (Kyiv).
O. Martsinkivskyi — People's Artist of Ukraine, soloist of Ukrconcert
Students-teachers
Larisa Luk'yanova (graduate of the Kyiv Conservatory), teacher of the Poltava Music School;
Snizhana Bychkova (graduate of Odessa Conservatory), teacher of Odessa Pedagogical University;
Alla Bondarenko (graduate of Chisinau Conservatory, teacher at Chisinau Pedagogical University);
Olena Vyshnevska - teacher of the Odessa Conservatory;
Mykola Kozak (Kremenchuk Music School).
Family
Wife - Anna Yakivna Openko, a bandura class teacher at the Small Academy of Arts (Poltava, 1961-2008). Children: Tsebriy Iryna Vasylivna, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor (Poltava National Pedagogical University named after V.G. Korolenko) and Openko Volodymyr Vasyliovych, Honored Artist of Ukraine, soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine.
