Baroque vocal stylistics as a performing problem (strategies of Evgenia Miroshnichenko`s class).
Fame of Yevheniia Semenivna Miro-shnychenko (1931–2009) as an opera singer is quite great worldwide. Many wrote on her during her lifetime: Henadii Kabka’s interviews, recorded memories of the singer herself, general overview of her life and works found a place in the textbook by Valentyna Antoniuk “Vocal Pedagogy (Solo Singing)”, biographical book by Tetiana Shvachko “Yevheniia Miroshnychenko”. With time, the actress is becoming more known as a talented teacher, through the success of her students. She has left a rich legacy: cultural, artistic, human, but most importantly the living artistic “organism”, that breathes, sings, feels – “Miroshnychenko Class”. This is her students inspired by the true maternalAny science education begins with the simplest matters having laid out the beginning and making the development possible. Every expert lives their profes-sional life as it was lived by their science from the very beginning. No wonder that young singers begin their studies with arias from the opera birth era, it is a gener-ally accepted fact among solo singing teachers. However, every teacher has their own vision, different approaches to the study of this complex material. The pur-pose ofthis article is to determine the performance problems of the baroque vocal style in the pedagogical repertoire of Y. S. Miroshnychenko. The Age of the birth of opera – Baroque. This historic era is represented by sophisticated buildings with interiors being a place for paintings, sculptures, stuc-co, amazing optical illusions, all new and grand; a momentous change in musical thinking – the polyphony creates a homophonic and harmonic system, which leads to a flourishing culture of solo improvisation. Meaning and semantic coordinate of musical creativity was changed: the sphere of elevated impartial Mass and cheer-ful and carefree song lyrics was enriched with sad, dramatic and tragic images. Generally, Baroque is unique in human history for its innovation and versatility. One of the representatives of Baroque music was Alessandro Scarlatti – the au-thor of more than one hundred operas. In his works, the style of opera-seria with its regulated set of arias was crystallized: lamento(complaint aria), vengeance (wrath), bravura, pastoral and heroic character. Paradoxically, this entire range of emotions is usually “embedded” in a clear three-part form of da capo. The first part was melodically complete and ended with a keynote. The second was differ-ent from the first one in the mood, tempo and melodic relief. The third part was not recorded by the composer, instead he just placed an indication “Da Capo” at the end of the second one, meaning “from the beginning”. That is the third part repeated the first one, but it should be repeated decorating the tune with various cadences. The question is, if we turn to the beginning of the vocal learning, can we con-sider such works simple? No, of course they are not simple, but it is impossible to create the foundation for a multi-storey skyscraper of vocal skills without them. Yevheniia Semenivna Miroshnychenko also gave priority to baroque arias at the first stages of training in her class. Everyone could show themselves using decorations. Usually, we did not improvise something different each time, but when invented or found a suitable grace note, recorded it. The accompanist of the attitude of their Teacher.Professor, Frina Ziskina, recalled in an interview: “There was a gray collection of old arias, I think it belonged to Mariia Eduardivna. These arias were called “cream of wheat”, that is for little ones, as the sound can be practiced well with them. Yevheniia Semenivna often gave arias of such composers as: Antonio Caldara, Giulio Caccini, Salvatore Legreci, Giovanni Paisiello, Ercole Pasquini, Giovan-ni Pergolesi, Nicola Porpora, Niccolo Piccini, Domenico Scarlatti, Vincenzo Ci-ampi, Antonio Cesti, Domenico Cimarosa, and the aria “Tu mancavi” of Anto-nio Cesti was her favorite. These arias allowed to develop the primary technical skills of a vocalist: alignment of registers, with the help of a comfortable and logical melodic line, low breathing, high position, endurance; improving the abil-ity to sing in different languages: Italian, German, French, English, Latin. The old arias are the first stop on the path of the world’s opera schools learning. In total, we were able to learn about 29 different types of arias for different voice types, mostly for soprano and mezzo soprano, from the singer’s students, but of course there are many more. Twenty-two arias in Italian, four in German, two in Latin and one in French. Thus, Baroque repertoire opened the doors to vocal life for all Miroshnychen-ko’s students. Already recognized former students of the Yevheniia Semenivna’s class told about it: soloists of Vienna Opera – soprano Olha Bezsmertna – her first aria was Caccini’s “Amarilli mia bella” and mezzo soprano Olena Bielkina began with Johann Bach, the master of polyphon, and “Blute nur” aria from “St Matthew Passion”; Uliana Aleksiuk – a soloist of the Bolshoi theater, Chicago and Houston opera houses – has achieved everything thanks to hard work and rehearsal of every piece of G. F. Handel; Maryna Zubko, now conquering the stages of Germany in the role of Lucia di Lammermoor, at the beginning of her training performed the Traveller’s aria from the oratorio “Juditha Triumphans” by Antonio Vivaldi. Thanks to the baroque repertoire, another student of Y. Miroshnychenko – Olha Pasichnyk became known. The singer graduated from the Kiev Conserva-tory in 1995, and since 1992 has been a soloist with the Warsaw Chamber Op-era. Her records of the Cleopatra’s aria from the “Julius Caesar in Egypt” opera (1724) by G. F. Handel inspire young singers for new achievements. On this re-cording, Pasichnyk performs the virtuoso aria while dancing, she knows exactly how to make her voice do what she needs in any situation. “Da tempeste” aria is an adornment in the repertoire of any performer. Such well-known contemporary singers like Cecilia Bartoli, Natalie Dessay, Julia Lezhneva and others performed this work inimitably, and each of them stressed the uniqueness of their voice with special techniques. Julia Lezhneva shows her skills through a stable technical sup-port of the Elena Obraztsova’s school, Cecilia Bartoli has some larynx flexibility, surprising and delighting the listeners. For me, the performance of Olha Ihorev-na Pasichnyk is a reference example of baroque singing, she does not deny herself the performance of works by authors of other eras despite her sheer talent and naturalness in this style. Vocal embodiment of the aria is absolutely unconstrained through proper breathing. Equal intonation over the entire range does not lose its colors. An extremely moving larynx allows decorating the melody with different coloraturas. Composers of the Baroque era are representatives of the centuries-old opera singing, the founders of the standard vocalization. In addition to beautiful opera arias, they also gave the world the first printed edition on the solo singing by Gi-ulio Caccini “Le nuove musishe” (“New Music») published in 1602. The singer and lutanist discovered new principles of performance with his work. He was also among the first to write instructions for performing. The importance of Giulio Cac-cini in creating the new style was highly appreciated among his contemporaries. Italian poet, Abbe Angelo Grillo wrote to the singer: “ You are the father of a new kind of music, or rather of singing, which is not singing, but a recitative – it’s noble, higher than folk songs, it does not distort and does not change the words, does not strip them of meaning and sense, but rather increases them, giving them more power and soul”. In this way, the “new music parents” give us a ticket into the big world of op-era pieces through our vocal teachers. Thanks to this beginning the road of vocal skills is becoming more flat. There are many life examples of Yevheniia Semeniv-na Miroshnychenko’s students. Every musician has a “founder work” remaining in their memory forever. In conclusion, I would like to recall the words of the Professor that talent is not help, it can even prevent achievements, if you do not put a lot of work to achieve your goals, and always added: “Singing is a miner’s work”. Everything she said was reinforced by personal example. Perfection, sharpening of mastery both in singing and in pedagogical activity were an integral part of Miroshnychenko’s character. After Yevheniia Semenivna was invited to teach at Tchaikovsky Nation-al Music Academy of Ukraine, the artist set herself the goal of achieving the same heights in pedagogical activity, as she did on the opera stage. As any person, she was afraid of the unknown, but she was confident in her abilities, from the book by Tetiana Shvachko “Yevheniia Miroshnychenko”: “The Lord God was so gracious to me, giving pedagogical talent as well, – Yevheniia Semenivna said”. Beginning with the first students of the Professor, almost everyone found themselves in the singer’s career. In addition to the strong vocal school, the artist gave every student a great gift of love and respect for art and their voice.