Apér'Opéra - Sofia Anisimova mezzo-soprano & Ionah Maiatsky piano

Marriage rituals play an important role in Ukrainian culture. The rites and rituals unfold in several stages that include meetings, hen party, engagement party, wedding.
As an example, in the past, the bridgroom went to the wedding ceremony with a group of his friends, to ask for the hand of the young bride-to-be. If the young woman liked the young man, she would stoke the embers in the fireplace. If she did not like him, she would give him a pumpkin. There are many many songs devoted to each one of the ritual steps in a marriage. Here we have chosen three songs, songs that the composer Myroslav Skoryk heard as child, sung by his great aunt, the famous Ukrainian opera singer Solomiya Krushelnytska. The first song is sung during an engagement party. The friends of the bride are compared to birds, and the bride herself to a cuckoo. The birds chirp, the cuckoo croaks. The friends sing, the young fiancée weeps.
The second song is a funny song. it is sung during hen parties. The young fiancée cries and tells her friends that she does not want to get married and lose her virginity. The last song tells of an orphan girl. She has no one to walk her to the altar. There are many funny and joke-filled wedding songs, and the three sung here have a dramatic dimension.


PROGRAM
Ukrainian melodies

Myroslav Skoryk
Oi letiat halochky (The birds fly)
Shumila lishchyna (A hazelnut tree comes to life)
Khyliaiuts vorota (Bow to the doors)

Volodymyr Ptushkin
Orne pole (Plowing field)
Liude moi (My people)
Try kameni (Three stones)
Viruiu (I believe)

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