Friends!

Friends! Today is the day of memory of the outstanding Ukrainian opera and chamber singer Boris Hmyrya.

Boris Hmyrya was born on August 5, 1903 in Lebedyne in Sumy Region. Father Roman was a stoneman, mother of Anna - a sword. Family was so poor that even the bread was split by thread. At the age of 11, Boris graduated from school and immediately went to work. He was a courier in court, a stoker, a sailor, and a loader. Because of that injured his back.

In 1930, when Hmyria was 27 years old, he eventually continued education - entered the Kharkiv Engineering and Construction Institute. These were very difficult years. The lack of money, constant fatigue and the worst thing - the Holodomor on Ukrainian lands. Because of it died- his father and sister, and his mother was saved by the boy. And in such conditions of life he still found strength .. at singing.

His voice was extraordinary. A gift of superior forces. On the fourth year at Boris Student's concert, they were invited to study at the Conservatory. At the same time, the Institute of Hmyria did not abandon - graduated with honors in 1935, a year later he was a postgraduate student. And at the same time - one more exception - he, still a student, was invited to work at the Kharkiv Opera House.

After graduating from the conservatory, Hmyrya became the winner of the All-Union vocal competition. Then he got the second place, and the first one was not taken by anyone. After that, the Bolshoi Theater, the Leningrad and Minsk opera at the same time invited Hmyria on incredibly advantageous terms, but then he began to work in Kyiv and refused to leave the city.

In the Kiev Opera and Ballet Theater, Boris Romanovich worked from 1939 to 1957 with a break. Almost a year - in Kamyanets-Podilsky.

In June 1941 Boris Hmyrya left for summer vacation in Crimea. Friends sent him a message - in Kiev came German troops, should not return. Therefore, Hmyria left for Kharkiv. There, he tore his back when he carried his heavy suitcases and got to the hospital. When he was treated, the city also included German troops.

Despite this, he was not banned from singing. On the contrary, there is a legend that the Ukrainian singer had to sing to the Hitler. He learned the aria from Wagner's opera, which nobody else has ever performed in the world, and had to sing it. But the plan was different - the Soviet government was about to throw a bomb to the theater just during the concert of Hmyria. But it happened that Hitler was not there, and the bomb did not explode, only the ceiling cracked itself.

The first wife of Boris Hmyria, Anna Ivanovna, grew severely ill and died in 1950. His second love he met at the vacation- a woman named Vira was a physiologist, her husband was missing during the war. They lived calmly and peacefully - he loved how a girl cooked, she - maintained the warmth and warmth in the house.

His voice was loved by thousands of listeners. The Soviet authorities did not let the singer perform abroad, despite the fact that there were mass applications for the performances of Hmira appeared in concerts and opera parties from the USA, Canada, Italy, England, and Holland. The answer was one: "Singer is sick." But they were allowed to work quietly at home - the singer was constantly harassed, instead of basso parties he was charged with performing parties for baritone and tenor. In the end, he was forced to leave the Kiev Opera House altogether.

But before Boris Romanovich did not speak, he always performed Ukrainian folk songs and works on poems of Kobzar. So one of the audience told: "I was at a concert in Leningrad, where Hmyrya performed works by Taras Grigorovich. At some point, it turns out not leading, but Boris Romanovich himself, with his soft, velvet voice, announces "My Thoughts, My Thoughts" with a commentary: "This verse Taras Shevchenko wrote here in St. Petersburg in 1839. In it, he with extraordinary power expressed his love and torturers for his native Ukraine, and his hopelessness to visit his native places again. "

And then this grief and hopelessness was pouring so that the cry was crying, and I will never forget this performance of Hmyria. Then I bought a disc and listened to him constantly "Dumas" to Shevchenko. So, Shevchenko did not perform any more, but he will hardly ever perform. "

Boris Hmyrya dreamed of the Ukrainian variants of F. Schubert's "Winter Road", all works on P. Tchaikovsky's music. On this occasion, appealing to well-known Ukrainian poets V. Sosyury, O. Novitsky, I. Pukchka, but all their translations were rejected, and to realize the planned time wasted time - he suddenly died.

Boris Hmyrya died on August 1, 1969. The prominent Ukrainian is buried on Baykovoye cemetery in Kiev.

Friends! Boris Hmyria was not just a talented singer, he was a genius of a song. Unfortunately, in Ukraine his name is not mentioned as often as it should be. So be sure to listen to his masterpieces today or tell the story of life to your friends.