May the Dream come true!..

15.01.2019

The first snow gently planning is falling on the evening city. The Concert Hall of the House of Unions has become deserted, the voices of the leaving audience have calmed down in the lobby. We are sitting with Natalia Ustinovich in the dressing room, talking and reminiscing. Her first solo concert in Tver has just finished, she is still excited and is yet to calm down from the stage and the applauses.

Do you remember how it all began? I ask. Natalia is smiling dreamingly: how could I forget…

Once upon a time in Kishinev, a young girl came to an audition to the People’s Artist of the USSR, the best Butterfly of our time, Maria Biesu. The girl by then had finished the comprehensive school and the school of Music and was studying at the University on a Faculty of Foreign languages. Maria Lukiyanovna Biesu highly valued her voice and immediately led her to the rehearsal of one of the operas of the State Moldavian Theatre of Opera and Ballet, where she introduced Natalia as her future student.

However, as fate would have it, after finishing the course of Foreign languages, Natalia ended up in Kamchatka where got engrossed in a research project on the Comparitive Analysis of intonation of the Russian and English languages. Nevertheless, the voice had a mind of its own and Natalia first became a soloist in Evgeny Morozov Kamchatka choir, then was a soloist in concerts, performing with famous music groups such as a well-travelled across Europe and America George Avvakumov Chamber Orchestra, Vladimir Shashin Orchestra of Folk instruments, a popular Alexander Andrianov Jazz Orchestra and others. I personally witnessed the creative development of Natalia Ustinovich and I am grateful to her that she was the first one to perform a few of my songs and romances. Her voice could be heard on the radio and television and people shouted encore in concert halls, admiring her singing. She worked with Kamchatka poets and composers and was invited by painters to pose for portraits. In the land of the volcanoes and typhoons to this day, you can hear the recordings of Natalia Ustinovich’s velvet mezzo-soprano voice.

When the singer travelled to Kishinev from Kamchatka during her holidays, she’d come to the Department of Solo Singing at the Music Academy in Moldova, where, alongside with Professor Maria Beisu, a famous all over the world opera singer, she established warm relations with Peoples Artist of USSR, Professor Tamara Alyoshina, also the outstanding opera singer, very valued and respected in many countries, who became Natalia’s vocal coach and even presented the young singer her own photograph as a gift with the inscription “To a beautiful talent, to a true pearl of nature Natasha Ustinovich with the hope for conquering by her of creative vocal heights!” Before that, another gift made it into Natalia’s family album – a photograph with bodly written “To the lovely Natasha! May your cherished dream come true, with best regards Maria Beisu”.

Having moved to Tver, Natalya Ustinovich continued her concert activity, working with Tver creative groups, local poets and composers. She was performing with Aleksey Mikhno Choir, with Valentina Ozerova Children’s Choir, as well as taking part in a few “Stars of Tver” programmes. At the end of October, the sold out opera of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata took place in the city, in which the singer brilliantly performed the role of Flora Bervois. Alongside with the Tver performers, other roles were performed by soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia and the Mussorgsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet from Saint Petersburg.

And here is the first solo concert on the land of Tver. Natalia has been carefully preparing for it, choosing a list of works. In the opera part of the concert, she included an Orfeo aria from Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice, which was included in Tamara Alyoshina’s repertoir and notes of which were once presented to her by the People’s Artist for luck. Natalia also sang Lel’s song from the Snow Maiden and Lyubava’s recitative and aria from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko. Afterwards, followed by P.I.T Tchaikovsky’s romances, a few city romances, two songs in English, songs and romances to the music of composers of Kamchatka and Tver, in particular, the new song from Vladimir Uspensky,”The girl fell in love” (Devchonka Vlyubilas). The duet of Theodor and Mister X from Imre Kalman operetta, The Circus Princess, which the singer performed with the winner of republican contest, George Vakulin, was met by a long round of applause. The accompanist Evgeny Volkov, has not only shown a profound understanding of performer’s individualities but also the ability to highlite the beauty of their voices. Old romances and modern songs performed by Natalia and accompanied by a quartet of folk instruments composed by Vladimir Pravnikov, Alexsandr Ivanov, Igor Smirnov and Sergey Melnikov were particularly especially warmly met. Lyudmila Adamchuk hosted the concert with warmth and smiles, to which the audience smiled back. Then there were a lot of flowers, a huge box of sweets and chocolates, presented by grateful spectators, and a joyous exhaustion.

Natalia looked at her watch: “It’s time to go home, to get some sleep and get ready for a trip”. I am going to Moscow tomorrow for another master-class lesson with an academician of the Russian Music Academy, Professor Mikhail Demchenko. I am lucky that higher vocal education I get from the Professor whom people regard as a teacher-jeweler of vocal arts.

We were walking and snowflakes of the first snow were festively dancing in the air in a yellow street lighting – the messengers of purity and kindness that will announce the 21st Century as the century that promises new and happy encounters with the audience.

Evgeny Sigarev,
Honoured Worker of Culture of Russia.
December 7, 2000, the newspaper “Tver life”