On 20 and 21 September, a unique musical performance called “Prolegomena to the Opera” will take place at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, for which the university will open the doors of the 300-year-old building, The old academic building is currently undergoing reconstruction. “Prolegomena to the Opera” – this is a story about students and workers of Mogilyanka from the beginning of the 18th century and the situations in which the stench was slept; about debates, classes, liturgies, ceremonies, almsgiving, funerals and sacred recreations, gatherings on the hills at the end of the initial fate, or yuletide and singing at once for a hundred voices. The creative minds behind the project were Sasha Andrusik, co-founder of the music agency UHO, and Marta Kuzma, artistic curator and head curator of “Factory 10”.
“Prolegomena to the Opera”
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“Prolegomena to the Opera” was born by the famous zustrich Marty and Sasha in one of the cafes on the Golden Gate, as luck would have it. “A few days before this meeting, I visited the city, where I spent at least 10 years working as the director and curator of the Soros Center for Sustainable Conscience (SCCA) in the historical district of the city – in Podol. Taking a walk in the open space the restored stake of the central apse of the Old Academic Building of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, I felt the turmoil through its neglect. Kuzma. That’s why she felt compelled to create a monumental project by Jannis Kounellis in 1997 here. “A few years after we met, Sasha and I were already driven by a strong desire to write a visible and sensitive project in the long-standing academic heart of the open space. And to develop it in such a way that it would never be erased from the cultural landscape.”
Dirigent Olga Prikhodko
Soloists – Denis Sagirov, Ruslan Kirsh and Kostyantin Lenchik
“The first Ukrainian theater was a school theater; and even all the early, baroque monuments of Ukrainian dramas are plays written in batches for students of the academies (Mohyla, Ostrozka) and collegiums. The pedagogical goal of these works was to either teach actors and spectators to fight, or to teach them the mystery of dispute. Interludes accompanied by playing on lute and sung,” they say in the UHO about the connection, which became the basis for “Prolegomena to Opera.”
The texts were written or found by Sasha Andrusik, who set them to music by Maxim Kolomiets, the set design was designed by Katya Libkind with the participation of Stanislav Turini.
Sasha Andrusik
The chamber cycle that stands before the listener is based on original and historical texts. New elements surround the liturgy, mammulae eloquentiae and disputes, and those discovered mirror the different aspects of student life. The range of dzherel extends from the first third of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century. The music of Vitriman’s work is in the style of “expanded baroque”: the traditional principles of polyphonic vocal performance here combine with the evidence accumulated by music since the 21st century.
“We dedicate this work to Ivan Kuzminsky, a musicologist and descendant of the Ukrainian Baroque tradition, and to Mikhailov Kirsenko, a historian and compiler, the head of the Department of History National University “Kiev-Mohyla Academy”. The grievances died in 2023: Ivan – in his hands, Mikhailo Volodymyrovych – the inheritance of the fire caused by the vibration of the generator,” says Sasha Andrusyk.
Photo: Yuriy Yatskulich
