Haidai, Zoia

Haidai, Zoia [Гайдай, Зоя; Hajdaj, Zoja], b 2 June 1902 in Tambov, Russia, d 21 April 1965 in Kyiv. Opera singer (soprano). A graduate of the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kyiv (1927), she was a soloist of the Kyiv Theater of Opera and Ballet (1928–30, 1935–55) and the Kharkiv Theater of Opera and Ballet (1930–4), and a teacher at the Kyiv Conservatory (1947–65). She appeared in over 50 Ukrainian, Russian, and Western European operas, including Semen Hulak-Artemovsky’s Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube (as Oksana) and Mykhailo Verykivsky’s Servant Girl (as Hanna). She also appeared on stage outside the USSR in such countries as China, Canada, and the United States of America. In 1960 L. Doroshenko wrote a biography of Haidai.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]