Boris Romanovych Gmyria (Boris Gmyria) |

Boris Gmyria

People’s Artist of the USSR (1951). Born into the family of a bricklayer. He worked as a loader, a sailor in the Black Sea merchant fleet. In 1935 he graduated from the Kharkov Civil Engineering Institute, in 1939 – from the Kharkov Conservatory, singing class of P. V. Golubev. From 1936 he performed on the stage of the Opera House in Kharkov, from 1939 he was a soloist of the Ukrainian Opera and Ballet Theater (Kyiv).

Gmyrya was one of the leading masters of the Soviet opera art. He had a voice of a wide range, soft, velvety timbre; the performance was distinguished by nobility and impeccable musicality. He was characterized by a deep knowledge of psychology, the disclosure of musical stage images, restrained inner strength, and great emotional expressiveness.

Parties: Susanin, Ruslan, Boris Godunov, Melnik, Gremin, Salieri; Tomsky (“The Queen of Spades”), Mephistopheles; Taras Bulba (“Taras Bulba” by Lysenko), Frol (“Into the Storm”), Valko, Tikhon (“Young Guard”, “Dawn over the Dvina” by Meitus), Vakulinchuk (“Battleship Potemkin” “Chishko), Ruschak (“Milan “Mayborody), Krivonos (“Bogdan Khmelnitsky” by Dankevich), etc.

Gmyrya is also known as a subtle interpreter of chamber vocal music. In his concert repertoire, St. 500 works by Russian, Ukrainian and Western European composers.

Laureate of the All-Union Vocal Competition (1939, 2nd pr.). Stalin Prize for concert and performing activities (1952). He toured in various cities of the Soviet Union and abroad (Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, China, etc.).