The topos of Hutsulshchyna in Yaroslav Barnych’s operetta “Hutsulka Ksenia”
Section 1. Western European music of the 19th and early 20th centuries
Abstract
Yaroslav Barnych (1896–1967), whose name after need emigration was erased for a long time from the history of national music, is a bright figure in the Ukrainian musical culture of the middle of the 20th century, a talented composer who was called the “Ukrainian Lehár”, an excellent teacher, a gifted conductor and an active social activist-educator. Among the genre palette of the artist’s works, the operetta genre stands out. Despite the fact that the composer created only four examples of this genre, Ya. Barnych managed to implement revolutionary changes of it and gain the status of “creator of modern Ukrainian operetta”. The operetta “Hutsulka Ksenia”, which fully expresses the main features of the renewed genre, remains the most famous and brightest among his musical and stage compositions. Today, this operetta is performed with great success in many cities of Ukraine and beyond, and the musical and stage heritage of the composer is of great interest to modern musicologists-researchers. The purpose of the article is to identify the signs of the embodiment of traditional Hutsul musical culture in Barnych’s operetta “Hutsulka Ksenia”. The innovativeness of this study consists in involving into the field of domestic musicology of the work by Ya. Barnych thanks to a comprehensive analysis of this operetta carried out for the first time. The means of modernization of this genre in Ukrainian music on its example were traced; the socio-cultural and autobiographical markers were determined, and the specifics of the use of elements of the Hutsul folklore musical tradition in the work was identified. It is concluded that Barnych’s “Hutsulka Ksenia” presents the genre of modern Ukrainian operetta (which is essentially similar to Neo-Viennese operetta), contains certain autobiographical and socio-cultural markers (which allow us to understand the idea of the work), demonstrates the connection of the musical material with the traditions of Hutsul musical culture.
References
2. Barnych, Ya. (2019a). Hutsulka Ksenia. Operetta. Libretto. (Introductory article, edited by L. Filonenko). Drohobych: Posvit [in Ukrainian].
3. Barnych, Ya. (2019b). Hutsulka Ksenia. Operetta. Score. (Music editor O. Drahan, editor-in-chief L. Filonenko). Drohobych: Posvit [in Ukrainian].
4. Bura, L. (1961). Meeting with music. Our Life, 10, 9–10. Philadelphia: Union of Ukrainian Women of America. https://unwla.org/media/magazine/our-life/196x/1961-10-october-magazineOur-Life.pdf [in Ukrainian].
5. Cherkaskyi, L. M. (2003). Ukrainian folk musical instruments. Kyiv: Tekhnika [in Ukrainian].
6. Danylets, V. (2020). The Hutsul music features in the structural and stylistic context of the performing folklorizm. Problems of interaction of art, pedagogy and theory and practice of education, 57, 77–88 [in Ukrainian].
7. Filonenko, L. (1999). Yaroslav Barnych: scientific and popular essay about his life and creativity. Drohobych: Vidrodzhennia [in Ukrainian].
8. Filonenko, L. (2009). About the composer Yaroslav Barnych and his song “Hutsulka Ksenia” (end). MIST: Art, History, Modernity, Theory, 6, 387–392. http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Mist_2009_6_51 [in Ukrainian].
9. Filonenko, L. (2017). The triumph of “Hutsulka Ksenia” by Yaroslav Barnych in Khmelnytskyi. Ukrainian music, 4, 157–164 [in Ukrainian].
10.Hrabovetskyi, V. (1993). Hutsuls in the history of Ukraine: Speech at the Congress of Hutsuls. Kolomyia: Svit [in Ukrainian].
11.Hutsul region: historical and ethnographic study. (1987). Kyiv: Naukova dumka [in Ukrainian].
12.Kubiiovych, V. (ed.) (1996). Encyclopedia of Ukrainian studies: dictionary part. Kyiv: Hlobus [in Ukrainian].
13.Operetta (n.d.). Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/operetta [in English].
14.Shostak, V. A. (2016). A thousand-year-old tree. Folk musical instruments of Transcarpathia: musical traditions and modernity. Uzhhorod: Karpaty [in Ukrainian].
15.Stanishevskyi, Yu. (2009). The difficult path of the “light genre”. Music, 1, 12–14 [in Ukrainian].
16.Transcarpathian folk songs (1962). (Edited by Z. Vasylenko, M. Hordiichuk). Kyiv: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. URL: https://shron3.chtyvo.org.ua/Zbirka/Zakarpatski_narodni_pisni.pdf [in Ukrainian].
17.Turchak, L. I. (2019). Creativity of Yaroslav Barnych: contribution to musical culture. Bulletin of Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts.. Series Art History, 41, 142–147. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31866/2410-1176.41.2019.188671 [in Ukrainian].
18.Turchak, L. I. (2020). The unknown author of a world-famous song: biography as a vector of cultural research. Issues of Cultural Studies, 36, 79–89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31866/2410-1311.36.2020.221048 [in Ukrainian].
19.Ukrainian musical encyclopedia (2016). (Ed.-in-chief H. Skrypnyk). Vol. 4. Kyiv: Rylsky Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology [in Ukrainian].
20.Yatskiv, O. (2002). About Yaroslav Barnych – the creator of operettas and his famous song “Hutsulka Ksenia”. In Boyky: journal: to the 75th anniversary of the “Boikivshchyna” Society. L. Sikora (Ed. in chief), pp. 279–280. Drohobych: Kolo [in Ukrainian].
