Ukrainian opera singer. People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1991), winner of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of Ukraine.
Biography
Tomb of Mykola Shopsha
Born in Veremiivka, he studied at a local high school, participated in amateur performances, and played the accordion. After graduation, he taught music and singing for some time.
He began his musical career during his military service in the KVO Song and Dance Ensemble, and later sang in the Veriovka Choir and the Dumka Chapel. In 1974, he entered the evening department of the M. Kondratyuk class at the Kyiv Conservatory, graduating in 1979. In the same year, he made his debut on the stage of the National Opera of Ukraine, to which he devoted almost thirty years of his creative life. In 1978, he won the republican competition "Young Voices". As a professional singer, he won a number of additional victories over several years of performances:
Mykola Lysenko International Competition (Kyiv 1979, 1st prize);
R. Vignes International Competition (Barcelona 1980, 2nd prize).
Soon he made his first major tour in the Scandinavian countries. Subsequently, he performed in Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, the USA, Holland and other countries. He is a laureate of the S. Hulak-Artemovsky Prize.
In 2006, he took part in the parliamentary elections as a candidate for people's deputies from the UCP.
Mykola Serhiyovych died on June 14, 2006. On June 16, the funeral service for the singer took place at the National Opera. The funeral service was held at St. Michael's Cathedral. He was buried at the Baikove cemetery.
Creative work.
Mykola Shopsha's chamber repertoire included more than 500 works and covered almost all styles and epochs of world music culture - from Handel's oratorio parts to twentieth-century romances. For almost thirty years of creative activity, he created more than thirty parts in the classical and modern opera repertoire. He was an advocate of performing opera works in the Ukrainian language:
"If we have a National Opera, then performances should be in Ukrainian. I really want our theater to have a Ukrainian repertoire. We now have a troupe like no other in the world-one sings better than the other. It's a pity that the artists, even the leading ones, don't perform much. Abroad, there is an opera house on every corner, and people go there willingly. But in our country, concert halls are filled with Russian artists of Jewish descent. The same thing is true on television: the most primitive, or is it a deliberate policy?
Roles:
Tsar Boris (Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky);
Mephistopheles (Faust by Gounod);
Taras Bulba (Taras Bulba by Lysenko);
Don Basilio (The Barber of Seville by Rossini);
Ivan Karas (The Cossack Beyond the Danube by Hulak-Artemovsky);
Philip (Don Carlos by Verdi);
Kochubey (Mazepa by Tchaikovsky);
Gremin (Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky);
Boris Timofeevich (Katerina Izmailova by Shostakovich);
Zakhar Berkut (The Golden Hoop by Lyatoshynsky).
Awards and honors
2005 - Laureate of the International Literary and Art Prize named after H. Skovoroda
