The music and theatre arts of Halychyna region is an integral part of the Ukrainian culture. Its brightest representative was Bohdan Antkiv (1915–1998), a unique personality whose works represent multidimensional and multifunctional connections between theater and music. Despite the significance of his artistic works for the Ukrainian culture, B. Antkiv’s life and career paths have not been thoroughly studied.
The purpose of the research is to characterize Bohdan Antkiv’s artistic works in terms of project activity and to determine the genre and style dominants of his theater and music projects.
The first chapter outlines the theoretical foundations of the research, characterizes the source base of the dissertation, and proposes a definition of an art project.
It is noted that despite the existence of works that cover the artistic career of B. Antkiv and characterize his theatrical work, there are currently no studies that would consider his musical and musical and theater activities. The necessity to consider B. Antkiv’s masterpieces in terms of art projects is substantiated.
An art project is defined as a syncretic and synthetic phenomenon initiated by a creative person (composer, director, actor, performing musician, etc.) or a number of individuals (collective project), which integrates several types of activities (artistic and research, artistic and creative, artistic and organizational) and usually involves different types of art to create a highly artistic art product and its public presentation (concert, stage production, etc.). B. Antkiv’s professional activity showed that in his art projects he combined the functions of a performer (actor, choir conductor, conductor) and an architect of a musical or musical and theatrical whole (composer, dramaturgist, organizing producer).
The second chapter is devoted to the analysis of Bohdan Antkiv’s life and career paths in terms of music and theatre arts of Halychyna region.
The paper suggests a periodization of the artist’s life and work. The first period (1932–1963) is connected with his work in Ternopil region. The first sub-period (1932–1939) is the artistic formation of B. Antkiv. At that time, the foundations of the artist’s project thinking were laid, and the determinants of his creative personality were formed – as a universal artist with a priority on musical, performing, and organizational activities. During second sub-period (1939–1963), B. Antkiv’s artistic activity was reoriented from musical to theatrical and musical and theatrical work, and the range of his activity universalism expanded, covering not only the musical but also theatrical sphere. The second period (1963–1998), which also has two sub-periods (1963–1991; 1991–1998), is associated with his work at the Lviv Mariia Zankovetska Drama Theater in the times of the USSR and independent Ukraine.
The type of B. Antkiv’s activity universalism can be defined as dual musical and theatrical, where musical universalism is presented on the border of performing and composing types with none of them prioritized, and theatrical universalism manifests itself with the priority of acting type, which was combined with other occupation (drama, theater studies). Both types of B. Antkiv’s universalism were included social activities, where organizational activities, in particular organizational and artistic (project) activities, played a significant role.
The third chapter characterizes the genre and style guidelines of B. Antkiv’s theater music and examines his theater and music work in project categories.
Music for the plays “Marusia Bohuslavka” (1948), “Spring Stream” (1950), “People of Goodwill” (1950), “Wedding with a Dowry” (1951), “Director” (1951), “The Komsomol Line” (1951), “Song of the Heart” (1954), “Taras Shevchenko” (1954) has been analyzed.
It has been established that the composer creatively approached the music of performances, taking into account his experience as an actor, director, and performing musician, demonstrating projective thinking. The themes related to Ukraine were the closest to him. The musical solution of these and alike performances most fully revealed all the facets of his talent. Projectivity as a type of creative thinking through the musical component deepened the content of schematic and formulaic of Soviet drama.
The performances for which B. Antkiv composed music demonstrate the construction of a holistic musical and theatrical composition, where music is not only an illustration but also a driver of action and a means of reproducing place and time. Thus, in his theatrical activity, B. Antkiv acted as a co-author of performances as art projects, organizing their musical space, and in cases of schematic and template drama, deepening its content with the help of music.
Keywords: modernism,postmodernism,musical art,theater art,Bohdan Antkiv,artist’s biography,art project,composer,choral art,instrumental art,folklore,arrangements,musical style and genre.
