The opera of Petr Tchaikovsky “Mazepa” in the scenic decision by Dmytro Hnatyuk

Abstract

The article recreates the important page of the creative biography of Dmytro Hnatyuk – his directorial activity. In the contradiction of complex socio-political and ideological changes of time, the essence of the artist is crystallized, due to the fierce thirst for national traditions, to the revival of Ukrainian nature in all dimensions of the cultural and artistic space, and in the operatic genre, above all. D. Hnatyuk’s appeal to the operatic classics, to the essence of the national tradition traced in her historical heritage, stimulates the formation of a new aesthetic understanding of the creativity of many composers, performers, and artists. D. Hnatyuk is a person who not only accumulates powerful energy potential, but also generalizes the super-performing experience with compelling and rationally-weighted directorial decisions. Perfectly mastering the mechanisms of solving scenic problems, the laws of development of the drama of the work, the director deliberately forms a qualitatively new level of dialogical unity of all components of the operatic genre: he localizes the personal factor as an irreplaceable component that structures the essence of acting, destroys the stereotypes of the development of the drama of the work, rooted convention. It was through the efforts of D. M. Hnatyuk that the opera of P. I. Tchaikovsky continued in the complex realities of the Ukrainian operatic tradition of the twentieth century, revealing a new dimension of its existence.The purpose of the article is to consider the little-known pages of the creative biography of D. Hnatyuk, his ascent to the Olympus of artistic recognition. By fixing the problem in the coordinates of the director’s practice of the artist and focusing on the production of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s opera “Mazepa”, we have the opportunity to reveal the dynamics of the resuscitation of the Ukrainian theatrical space in the context of the operatic genre.The methodology of the research involves the use of historical, comparative, art criticism and cultural methods, which makes it possible to analyze the opera of P. Tchaikovsky’s “Mazepa” in a new dimension, opening unexcited pages of the creative biography of the artist.The scientific novelty of the work is due to the fact that it uses a considerable amount of archival materials, reviews, and an epistolary heritage, which enables to fill the gaps of the cultural and artistic space of Ukraine at the end of the twentieth century, and, by focusing on the phenomenon of the artist’s creative biography, to reveal his essence in the context. socio-cultural tendencies of this period.Conclusion. The scientific thought of the present stimulates a permanent rethinking of the established and already canonized methods and mechanisms of studying creative biography as a cultural phenomenon, laying the unshakable basis for the development of humanitarianism in the space of modern attitudes and discourses. Investigating the creative biography of D. Gnatyuk, we fill significant gaps in the national cultural and artistic heritage, form orientations for the opera and theatrical performances of the future and introduce the methods of operatic scenography into the practice of educational activities of the Academy.