Mykhailo Damianovych Romenskyi (9 (21) November 1887, Kursk, Kursk Province, Russian Empire - 24 November 1971, Kyiv) was a Ukrainian opera singer (bass), People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1946).
Biography.
He was born on 9 (21) December 1887 in Kursk in the family of an official. As a child, he sang in a church choir. He studied at the Kursk Land Surveying School and in the classes of A. M. Abaza. In 1910, he was auditioned by L.V. Sobinov and advised him to study with L. Donskoy at the Moscow Music and Drama School at the Moscow Philharmonic Society. However, Mikhail Romensky was able to enter this school only in 1913 and graduated in 1916.
From 1917 he performed at the opera houses of Petrograd, Odesa, Tomsk, Omsk and Novosibirsk. Since 1920 he has been a soloist at the Rostov-on-Don Opera House, in 1934-1941 he was a soloist at the Kharkiv Opera House, and in 1942-1958 at the Kyiv Opera House. In 1947-1952 he was a professor at the Kyiv Conservatory.
He died on 24 November 1971. He was buried in Kyiv at the Baikove Cemetery (plot No. 21; the author of the tombstone is Rzhetskyi).
Creativity.
He had a powerful voice of bright, colourful timbre, wide range and perfect technique. He had a good singing school, which allowed him to perform in opera performances until the age of 70 and concerts until the age of 84. He performed in concerts, with particular success performing Ukrainian and Russian folk songs and solos. He also starred in the film-opera Taras Bulba (1952) in the title role.
He created more than 80 different characters, including:
Susanin (Ivan Susanin by M. Glinka; Stalin Prize, 1949, one of his best roles);
Boris Godunov, Varlaam (Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky);
Don Basilio (The Barber of Seville by Rossini);
Taras (Taras Bulba by Mykola Lysenko);
Elected (Natalka Poltavka by I. Kotliarevsky);
Karas (The Cossack Beyond the Danube by S. Hulak-Artemovsky);
Gabriel (Bohdan Khmelnytsky by K. Dankevych);
Mephistopheles (Faust by Ch. Gounod);
Valko (The Young Guard by Yuri Maitus)
Gremin (Eugene Onegin by P. Tchaikovsky)
Prince Galician (Prince Igor by A. Borodin)
Mikhail Romensky's last major work was the role of Kutuzov in Prokofiev's opera War and Peace. In 1957, he was awarded the Diploma of Laureate of the All-Union Festival of Drama and Musical Theatres for this work.
Tribute.
To perpetuate the memory of Mykhailo Romenskyi, a memorial plaque was erected on the house No. 20 on Yevhen Chykalenko Street in Kyiv, where he lived from 1944 to 1971 (bronze, bas-relief portrait of the actor, his characters from operas; sculptor I. Shapoval, architect I. Shemsedinov; unveiled on 31 May 1979).
