Vasyl Yaroslavovych Slipak ( uk, Василь Ярославович Сліпак, 20 December 1974 – 29 June 2016) was a Ukrainian

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...

opera singer. From 1994 he frequently performed in France at such venues as

Paris Opera The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...

and Opéra Bastille.Zelensky begins his speech at UNGA with story about deceased opera singer Vasyl Slipak

112 Ukraine 112 Ukraine ( uk, 112 Україна) was a private Ukrainian TV channel which provided 24-hour news coverage. 112 Ukraine was available on satellites AMOS 2/3, via the DVB-T2 network, and was also available in packages of all major Ukrainian ca ...

(25 September 2019)
For his opera performance, Slipak received several awards, including "Best Male Performance" for the

Toreador Song The Toreador Song is the popular name for the aria "" ("I toast you"), from the French opera ''Carmen'', composed by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. It is sung by the bullfighter (French: '' toréador'') Escamil ...

. A volunteer in the Ukrainian army, Slipak was killed during the

war in Donbass War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...

by a Russian sniper near the village of

Luhanske Luhanske ( uk, Луганське; russian: Луганское, Luganskoye) is an urban-type settlement in Bakhmut Raion, a part of Donetsk Oblast in Ukraine. It is located on the M04 highway, about from Bakhmut. The population of Luhanske was ...

, in Bakhmut region. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine for his work as a volunteer soldier.

Opera career

Born in 1974 in Lviv, Slipak liked to sing since his childhood. At the age of 11, Slipak joined the Lviv children's choir group Dudarik. After that, he continued his education at the Lviv Conservatory. During his education, Slipak participated in a vocal contest in the French city of Clermont, winning the contest. In 1996, Slipak received an invitation to perform at Opéra Bastille in Paris. In 1997 Slipak graduated from the Lysenko Music Academy in Lviv and then was invited to the Paris Opera where he became an opera singer. By 2011, he was at the top of his field, winning the prize for best male performer at the Armel Opera Competition and Festival in Szeged, Hungary, for his rendering of the Toreador Song from the opera ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...

''.

Repertoire

*Escamillo / ''

'' /

Georges Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', whi ...

*Figaro / ''

The Marriage of Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...

'' / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *Ramfis / '' Aida'' /

Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

*Boris Godunov / ''Boris Godunov'' / Modest Mussorgsky *Igor Svyatoslavich / '' Prince Igor'' /

Alexander Borodin Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin ( rus, link=no, Александр Порфирьевич Бородин, Aleksandr Porfir’yevich Borodin , p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr pɐrˈfʲi rʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈdʲin, a=RU-Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin.ogg, ...

*Prince Gremin / ''Eugene Onegin'' / Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky *Il Commendatore (Don Pedro), Masetto / ''

Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...

'' / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *Lindorf, Dapertutto, Coppélius, Miracle / '' The Tales of Hoffmann'' / Jacques Offenbach *Sparafucile / '' Rigoletto'' /

*Sarastro, Speaker of the temple, Three priests / '' The Magic Flute'' / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *Don Giovanni / ''

'' / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *Colline / '' La bohème'' / Giacomo Puccini *Méphistophélès / ''Faust'' / Charles Gounod *Banco / ''Macbeth'' /

*Mainfroid, a Sicilian, adherent of Procida / '' Les vêpres siciliennes'' /

*Philippe II / '' Don Carlos'' /

*Basilio / '' The Barber of Seville'' / Gioachino Rossini *Ralph / '' La jolie fille de Perth'' /

*Count Rodolfo / '' La sonnambula'' / Vincenzo Bellini *Don Alfonso / ''

Così fan tutte (''All Women Do It, or The School for Lovers''), K. 588, is an opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was first performed on 26 January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte w ...

'' / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *Demon / ''The Demon'' / Anton Rubinstein *Forester, Badger, Harašta, the poacher / '' The Cunning Little Vixen'' / Leoš Janáček *Death, Loudspeaker / ''

Der Kaiser von Atlantis ' (''The Emperor of Atlantis or The Disobedience of Death'') is a one-act opera by Viktor Ullmann with a libretto by Peter Kien. They collaborated on the work while interned in the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt (Terezín) around 1943. ...

'' / Viktor Ullmann

Death

Slipak returned to Ukraine and participated in the

Euromaidan Euromaidan (; uk, Євромайдан, translit=Yevromaidan, lit=Euro Square, ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protes ...

in 2014. In 2015, Slipak joined the fights against pro-Russian separatists as a member of the 7th Battalion of the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps of the Right Sector. He took the

military call sign Military call signs are call signs assigned as unique identifiers to military communications. In wartime, monitoring an adversary's communications can be a valuable form of intelligence. Consistent call signs can aid in this monitoring, so in wart ...

Mif, a reference to his favorite aria of Mephistopheles from the opera '' Faust'' (his informal call sign was ''Myth''). After the war in Donbass, Slipak planned to continue his career in Paris. On 29 June 2016, at approximately 6 a.m., Slipak was killed by a sniper shot near

. Slipak's life was the subject of the 2018 documentary film ''

Myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

''. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has awarded posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine to Slipak.

References

External links

* * * * *
НСКУ "П"ЄРО МЕРТВОПЕТЛЮЄ" Камерна кантата. – В.СЛІПАК (контртенор)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slipak, Vasyl 1974 births 2016 deaths 21st-century Ukrainian male opera singers Ukrainian baritones Musicians from Lviv Ukrainian expatriates in France Deaths by firearm in Ukraine Ukrainian military personnel of the war in Donbas Ukrainian military personnel killed in the war in Donbas Recipients of the Order of Gold Star (Ukraine) Burials at Lychakiv Cemetery Lviv Conservatory alumni