Voices carried by the written record

Orpheus and Lyra is a written reference for singers, musicians and readers interested in Ukrainian and Russian vocal music. Its pages bring together opera roles, song titles, composers, poets, performance captions and a memorial programme in a calm, legible setting. The emphasis is on relationships: words entering music, roles shaping a singer’s repertory, and musical places linking artists across generations.

Begin with Renata Babak

Рената Бабак / Renata Babak (1934–2003) stands at the centre of the collection. The Ukrainian-American mezzo-soprano had been a soloist at the Bolshoi Opera, left the Soviet Union in 1973, and made her United States début at Carnegie Hall in 1975. Her pages document a wide repertory through roles and arias: Carmen, Amneris in Aida, the Countess in The Queen of Spades, Marfa in Khovanshchina, Ratmir in Ruslan and Lyudmila, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, and Marguerite in Faust.

The best route into this material is the Renata Babak role catalogue. A separate Ukrainian opera arias page records works by Semen Hulak-Artemovskyi, Mykola Lysenko, Vitaliy Kyreiko and others. The 2004 memorial concert programme preserves a different kind of record: a sequence of artists, roles and ensemble numbers presented in Washington, D.C., after her death.

Opera, art song and tango

The collection ranges from large dramatic works to songs that connect poetry and music. The page on Tchaikovsky’s Mazepa records the opera’s relationship to Pushkin’s Poltava, Pavel Lisitsian in the title role and Babak as Liubov. Mykola Lysenko’s Taras Bulba represents Ukrainian national opera, while the song about Petro Doroshenko opens a window onto older Ukrainian song tradition.

Poetry is equally important. Ivan Franko in Ukrainian art song considers how a lyric text changes when it becomes a vocal work. Taras Shevchenko appears both as a poet whose verse entered song repertory and as a visual artist whose drawings, paintings and prints form a catalogue of their own. The Ukrainian art-song page focuses on Platon Maiboroda and Babak’s documented repertory.

The site’s Ukrainian tango feature is one of its richest lists. It names more than thirty songs and credits figures including Bohdan Vesolovskyi, Stepan Huminilovych, Yaroslav Barnych, Marta Pashkivska, Olha Ilkiv, Myroslav Skoryk and Volodymyr Ivasiuk. It is retained as a historical feature, not as a current-news page.

Singers across the collection

Соломія Крушельницька / Solomiia Krushelnytska is represented through roles ranging from Loreley and Elsa to Elektra, Brünnhilde, Halka and Tatyana. The Franco Corelli tribute is organized around dated stage captions, including Radamès, Andrea Chénier, Don José, Pollione, Romeo, Werther and Cavaradossi. Pages for Ivan Kozlovsky and Taras Shtonda preserve the smaller but distinct repertory trails attached to their names. Other singers named within the wider catalogue include Mykhailo Gryshko, Zinoviy Babii, Yevhenia Miroshnychenko, Boris Gmyria, Nikolai Pechkovsky, Sofia Preobrazhenskaya, Feodor Chaliapin and George London.

How to use this collection

Titles are presented in clear English, with Ukrainian forms included where they improve identification. Name forms follow Ukrainian transliteration for Ukrainian subjects, including Kyiv, Solomiia Krushelnytska and Semen Hulak-Artemovskyi. When only an English descriptive song title is available, the catalogue labels it as such rather than presenting it as a definitive translation.

This is a reading collection, not a substitute for a score, discography or performance history. The repertoire index is organized around durable facts: composer, poet, work, role and performer. For the physical work behind long musical careers, the performer-health guide offers a separate, general introduction without attaching any condition to a named artist.