Interview with
Oksana Lyniv: “We are being robbed of our normal lives”
Vienna Festival: With the Kaddish Requiem "Babyn Yar" by Jevhen Stankovych, the genocide of the National Socialists in Ukraine will be commemorated at the Vienna Konzerthaus on Sunday. Conductor Oksana Lyniv sees analogies to today.
She is one of the top international conductors, was the successful music director of the Graz Opera and was the first woman to conduct at the Bayreuth Festival: Ukrainian Oksana Lyniv, who was invited by the festival to perform the Kaddish Requiem "Babyn Jar" by Jevhen Stankovych with orchestras and the national choir of her home country at the Konzerthaus on Sunday.
The concert almost didn't take place, as Vienna Festival Director Milo Rau also invited Teodor Currentzis for a "peace concert". But the Russian-Greek conductor has still not commented on the Russian war of aggression.
Kronenzeitung: Ms. Lyniv, the Currentzis concert was cancelled after your protest. How much attitude do you need?
Oksana Lyniv: There are artists who openly present their opinions and clearly show with their work that they do not support regimes. The opposite is the case with Teodor Currentzis, who repeatedly has works such as Requiem on his repertoire, but continues to perform in Russia and works with Russian sponsors who are on the European sanctions list. That's why I don't see him as an artist with whom I would enter into a peace project.
How political should, may, must conductors be? When do you have to become conciliatory?
It's not necessarily about politics. Of course, art always reflects social developments. Art is always there to reflect the traumas, to comfort the pain and to heal the wounds.
How do you currently feel about conducting Yevhen Stankovych's Kaddish Requiem "Babyn Yar"?
A genocide is also taking place in Ukraine. Russia is dropping bombs and missiles on civilian cities. Churches, museums, schools and printing works are being destroyed. These places are not in the line of battle and yet they are attacked daily. In every part of Ukraine, from big cities to small villages, there are mourning ceremonies and funerals of young and old soldiers every few days. We are being robbed of our normal lives.
Young people are forced to defend our freedom at the front. Many have disappeared or been taken prisoner under inhumane conditions. And all this just 70 years after it was said that there would finally be peace in Europe, that it would never happen again ... So when I conduct Stankovych's dramatic score, I think that history is unfortunately repeating itself and peace remains a dream.
In Vienna, you conduct the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and members of the YsOU - Young Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, which you founded in 2017. What is the current situation for musicians from both orchestras?
The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra has been rehearsing in exile in Germany for a year and a half. My youth symphony orchestra meets regularly for tours and projects throughout Europe. Many of the young people are currently living and studying in Europe, and we have helped many of them to get to safety.
Some still stay in Ukraine with their families and music academies and travel for our projects.
We often have to apply for special permission for the male members to leave the country. There are also many wonderful partners who have supported the youth orchestra and ensured its development. The Berliner Philharmoniker have even taken on the official sponsorship of two orchestras, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and the Youth Orchestra.
What significance does the concert in Vienna have for the two orchestras?
The concert in Vienna means a great deal to all of us. I am very grateful to the Wiener Festwochen and the Wiener Konzerthaus for this great initiative.
The Babyn Yar massacre
After the occupation of Kiev in 1941, the Nazis decided to exterminate the Jews of Kiev. Posters called on them to gather for resettlement measures. 30,000 people followed. They were driven to the Babyn Yar ravine near the city. There they had to undress and stand in groups of ten at the edge of the ravine. They were then shot down.
According to a Einsatzgruppen report, a total of 33,771 Jews were killed in this way on September 29 and 30, 1941. In the following months, thousands more Jews, "gypsies" and Soviet prisoners of war were killed. According to investigations by the Soviet State Commission, a total of around 100,000 people were murdered in Babyn Yar.
In the course of the German retreat in 1943, the traces of the mass murder were to be covered up. Inmates of a nearby camp were forced to dig up and burn the bodies.
Source: Heinke Lang/German Historical Museum, Berlin
What can the audience expect from Jevhen Stankovych's Kaddish Requiem?
The requiem is about terrible things, about things that we experience every day today: this mania for annihilation and power at any price. It is about the forgotten victims of this madness. The composer Jevhen Stankovych, who unfortunately cannot come to the Vienna performance, wanted to combine two things in it: Kaddish and the Christian Requiem, so that we can remember all the victims together.
What characterizes his composition?
He uses a special musical language, with many moments of Jewish archaic music, and also passages where you can hear a Christian prayer. In this piece, he poses the question of justice. The victims ask the question to God: If you created us in your image, why do you allow this? Why do you allow us to lie forgotten in this filth? They demand judgment, nothing should be forgotten, responsibility should be taken.
How do you feel about this requiem?
The work pulls back the curtain on history. It is about facts. It all begins with a tam-tam beat, then there are rows of 10 notes in pianissimo. I said in the rehearsal: these are the victims. They are like shadows that have been waiting to be remembered, to emerge from oblivion.
Because the Soviet regime wanted to erase the memory of the extermination of the Jews. A park was set up in this place where people used to go for walks. Until 1961, there was a dance floor there, people ate and drank in this place, unaware that all these victims were lying in the ground just a few centimetres below.
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