Zarytska, Yevheniia

Zarytska, Yevheniia or Zareska, Eugenia [Зарицька, Євгенія; Zaryc'ka, Jevhenija], b 9 November 1910 in Rava-Ruska, Galicia, d 5 October 1979 in Malmaison, near Paris. Opera and concert singer (mezzo-soprano); cousin of Sofiia Zarytska. She studied under Adam Didur at the Lviv Conservatory and made her debut at the Lviv Opera (1937; see Lviv National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet) as Leonora in Gaetano Donizetti’s La Favorita. She also studied in Vienna, where she won first prize in the International Festival of Song (1938), and from 1939 she lived in Italy, where she performed at La Scala as Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and appeared in Italian feature films. She sang throughout Europe and North America, under the conductors Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Eugene Ormandy, and Carlo Maria Giulini. Her operatic repertoire consisted of over 30 roles, including the Countess in Peter Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, the name-part in Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Margaret in Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and Martha in Modest Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina.

Zarytska recorded for many international labels. She sang the role of Marina in the award-winning HMV recording of Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. Her album of Ukrainian art songs, titled Chants d’Ukraine (issued in 1956 by Paris Columbia), includes works by Mykola Lysenko, Kyrylo Stetsenko, Mykhailo Verykivsky, Lev Revutsky, Borys Kudryk, Vasyl Barvinsky, Nestor Nyzhankivsky, Volodymyr Baltarovych, and Mykola Kolessa.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]