Ivan Sherbul (born 1 January 1949, Oleksiivka village) is a Ukrainian actor, composer and singer. Honoured Artist of Ukraine (2000), People's Artist of Ukraine (2021).
Born in Bukovyna and Galicia
Ivan Sherbul began his career as a soloist with the Bukovyna Folk Instruments Orchestra after graduating from the Kyiv Institute of Culture (conducting and choral department) in 1974. Then he worked as a soloist at the Chernivtsi Folk Opera House of Trade Unions. The artist had great success in leading roles: Count Almaviva (The Barber of Seville), a young gypsy (Aleko) by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Andriy (Cossack Beyond the Danube).
In 1983-1984, he was an opera singer at the Chernivtsi Philharmonic. During 1984-1985, I. Sherbul worked at the Ivano-Frankivsk Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre. Since 1985, he has worked at the Luhansk Music and Drama Theatre.
In 2014, after the Russian occupation of Luhansk, he moved with the theatre to Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk region. In 2022, after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the frontline approached Sievierodonetsk, Ivan Petrovych lost his home for the second time and became an internally displaced person. After a serious illness, he died on 23 December 2022 in a hospital in Cherbourg-Octeville, France.
In dramatic and musical performances
The actor has been working in the Luhansk Regional Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre since 1985. Ivan Sherbul has a wonderful vocal voice, expressive stage language, attractive appearance, temperament, good energy and stage contagion. These qualities helped the actor to take a leading position in the company and create interesting, vivid, colourful characters in both dramatic and musical performances:
Steshko ("Women's Rebellion").
Professor Lazich ("ToBe'Zh").
Zolotnytskyi (The Master).
Abdullah (Grandmothers Marry).
Grigory ("Ah, a migraine!").
Shpak (Shelmenko, the Day Laborer).
Edmond (Ladies and Hussars).
In the plays of Ukrainian classics
Musicality, cordiality, and spontaneity of the actor make up his unique personality, revealing his mentality as a national one. The actor creates characters in Ukrainian classical plays with special warmth and generosity of heart:
Cherevyk (Sorochinsky Fair).
Levko (May Night).
Oleksiy (Matchmaking at Goncharivka).
Matchmakers (Nazar Stodolya).
Lyric and dramatic tenor
As a vocalist, a lyric-dramatic tenor of a full range, the artist has vividly revealed his talent in musical performances:
Mitrus ("The Cholopka").
Mladek ("Poor Student").
Jim ("Rose-Marie").
Orlovsky, Falk ("The Bat").
Honours.
The actor is an active concert performer, he is a member of the quartet "Riznobarvy", which won the Grand Prix at the First International Ukrainian Song Contest in Krasnodon in 1997. I. P. Sherbul is a scholarship holder of the Luhansk Regional Council's Award for Famous Figures of Culture and Art.
