Stina / The Wall - The First Ukrainian Rock Opera

In a comment to my post on A little music history Kasia brought up a jem of a topic. The first Ukrainian Rock Opera Stina, and mentioned that Ihor Bilozir was involved in it having read about it somewhere on the web. Ihor in fact was not involved in this project, and to answer Kasia's question as to whether Bilozir finished the conservatory or not. According to Rostyslav and his wife, Ihor indeed did finish his studies at the Conservatory in L'viv.

The facts of this incredible Ukrainian first are the following according to both my business partner Rostyslav Shtyn and other sources I have consulted after consulting with him.

Rostyslav told me that Stina was written based on a poem by Martsenkiaviczus) and was written by him together with Volodymyr Prasolenko and Yuriy Sayenko. According to Rostyslav it was written over a very short period of time, with Rostyslav providing the musical direction and dividing the work up between them. In a Kyiv studio Rostyslav put the complete work together and making adjustments where necessary.

Rostyslav told me it was a mix of rock, classical and experimental music, according to one source there were people who were in awe when they heard the completed result.

A video version of the Rock Opera was recorded for Lviv Television over a ten day period and was produced by Tetiana Mahar which also include some of Zhayvir experimental sounds including their version of Ivanku, Ivanku mentioned in an earlier post.

A little music history

Easter is one of those moments for family and friends to gather. Due to a small force major incident last Thursday I couldn't travel to my father's village to spend time with my cousin, his family and my godson. As a consolation I spent Easter with my business partner and someone who has become a good friend over the last months. After watching an interview with the Singing Rector, we channel surfed a little to stumbled across a Channel 5 broadcast of Vasyl Ilashchuk's documentary about Volodymyr Ivasyuk, composer and author of Chervona Ruta.

While watching this documentary we ushered back in time a little. After it was over, it was my business partner's idea to continue the historical journey and he put pulled out some old VHS cassettes. The first one he put on were early videos of Vatra that were recorded in L'viv in the early 1980s, a group in which he was a member of. Vatra, headed by Ihor Bilozir, former husband of Oksana Bilozir, and who was attacked by russophiles in L'viv and subsequently died in 2000.  It was quite a difference to see the streets, which were almost devoid of any vehicular traffic, compared to what is it has become over 20 years later.

My business partner had explained to me a number of times how in 1984 he along with others were looking for a new sound. As a result they went on to form Zhayvir based out of Rivne, and while some Ukrainian sites note that maybe this wasn't the best place to start something up as experimental as they were at the time they don't go on to look at just how conservative people in the FSU were at the time. After watching the Vatra videos, we put on a CD of Zhayvir. As we went through the tracks I came across a song, that in its arrangement sounded very familiar. It was Ivanku, Ivanku!  The last time I heard a similar arrangement was on Tamara Gorsky's album Vatra.  I stopped to wonder where Tamra Gorsky had first heard that arrangement, could it have been Zhayvir?