Starytsky, Myroslav

Starytsky, Myroslav aka Miro Skala-Starycky [Старицький, Мирослав; Staryc'kyj], b 13 June 1909 in Skala (now Skala-Podilska), Borshchiv county, Galicia, d 16 February 1969 in Paris. Opera and concert singer (lyric tenor), and teacher. He studied voice under Adam Didur and L. Ulukhanova in Lviv and received a diploma from the Vienna Academy of Music (1942). He sang leading roles at theaters in Strasbourg (1943–4), Zurich (1950), Brussels (1954–7), and Paris (from 1949). He premiered the role of Igor in Georges Bizet’s opera Ivan IV in Le Grand-Théâtre in Bordeaux (1951) and toured throughout Europe and North America. His most famous roles were the name-part in Charles Gounod’s Faust, Rodolfo in Giaccomo Puccini’s La Bohème, and the Duke of Mantua in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto. In 1963 he founded a music-drama studio in Paris, where he taught until his death. He recorded several albums of art songs and of Ukrainian folk song arrangements.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]