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Not the Trio Conspirito

I am sitting outdoors at Brio's, in Phoenicia, with Sviatoslav Moroz and Olga Dyachcovskaya. With his mobile features and shaggy hair, Sviatoslav resembles the bass player for an English pop-rock band. Olga, in a skirt and high heels, could be a Vanity Fair princess. In fact, Sviatoslav (or "Slava") is a master violinist and Olga, his wife, a renowned soprano. Both are Muscovites-in fact, they currently maintain an apartment in Moscow-and also inhabitants of Saugerties.
Olga and Slava both underwent a long training (and "serious music" is, in a sense, an endless training). Slava began studying the violin at the age of five, at the behest of his grandmother. He would play one hour a day on the piano and three hours on the violin. When Slava was seven, his mother, Professor Natalia Gutman, herself a world-class cellist, married Oleg Kagan, a great violinist. Kagan assumed the musical instruction of his stepson.

At the age of 21, Slava entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied for four years. (One of his professors was his own stepfather.) He also attended the Paris Conservatory under the tutelage of Gerard Poulet for one year.

In fact, Sviatoslav comes from a long musical lineage. He plays a rare Gagliano violin, passed down from his great-grandfather Anisim Berlin, who was a pupil of Leopold Auer. His great-grandmother L. Burakinskaya, also a violinist, studied in Germany with Joseph Joachim, a pupil of Felix Mendelssohn.

Olga tells her own history: "I started when I was seven years old. I sang in a big, big children's ensemble in Moscow, a famous ensemble: the Loktov. It has a choir, an orchestra, a dance group. I sang there for 10 years, then I started in the Gnesun Music College, and I graduated the Moscow Theatre Academy. And then I sang in Vienna two years [at the Vienna Conservatory]. I sang a lot of old music, music of Middle Ages: Monteverdi, Telemann, Bach cantatas. Then I jumped to operettas, because I received contract in the theatre for the main role in the opera Jujitsa by Franz Lehar. I sang a lot of operetta in different stages: in Baden-by-Vienna, in Belvedere Theatre. Then in Germany I received contract for a different opera from Imrich Kalman: "The Circus Princess"-it's beautiful music. One year, all cities in Germany. Almost every day in different city."

Indeed, Olga and Slava have lived an itinerant life. They met 12 years ago in Moscow, lived seven years in Munich (while also traveling widely), then moved for two years to Sintra, Portugal, the site of the Summer Palace of the Portuguese monarchy. There they became friends with the aged Marquesa da Cadaval, then 95, who attended one of their concerts. The Marquesa was of Russian extraction, though born in Italy. She spoke 10 languages, but no Russian. "I'm Russian, but I don't speak Russian because my Russian teacher was very bad," the Marquesa explained. "He was Graf Yousoukov ["Graf" is equivalent to "Count" in English], whose father was the lover of Catherine II of Russia. When he came to the house, he was always drunk. I remember him sitting on a horse, and falling off."

In Portugal, Slava played with the Moscow Piano Quartet (violin, cello, piano, and viola), all the members of which were Russian emigrés. "But then they have trouble," Olga narrates. "You know, they all musicians."
"Crazy," explains Slava.

"Crazy," Olga agrees.

"Every day scandals," Slava elaborates.

"Terrible, terrible," remarks Olga.

"But we play good," Slava recalls.

Eventually the personality conflicts were too much. Also, says Olga, "In Portugal, there was nothing for me to do there." So they decided to move back to Moscow. Meanwhile, Olga's family had moved to the United States. "I won a green card in a lottery," Olga recounts. "They played the lottery and they put my name in, and I won a green card. And then we said, 'Why not? We can try to do something here.' Anyhow, we like going to a new place."

"You like moving?" I ask. They both nod.

"Maybe next, New Zealand," Slava suggests, deadpan.

"But we like it here," Olga assents.

"Woodstock special place," Slava says with a smile-a smile of irony perhaps?

Their trio has played at the Colony Café in Woodstock several times. (They are accompanied by Dmitri Shteinberg on piano.) "This idea to organize this trio-voice, violin, and piano-was born about ten years ago," Olga says. "We start to perform in Vienna, and then in Germany, in different halls."

"Does it have a name, the trio?" I ask.

"Not really," Olga frowns. "Yeah, we thought about giving some name, like Trio Conspirito, but nah!"

The Colony, they say, has "beautiful acoustics." Slava remarks: "It has Italian style."

"Do you still practice four hours a day?" I ask Sviatoslav.
"Sometimes," he answers.

"If he's learning a new piece, sometimes he will practice for eight hours," Olga informs me.

"And do you practice four hours a day?" I ask her.

"Yes, I practice, but voice is different; voice needs rest," Olga reveals.
Slava mimics a sleeping person, and says, in a high voice: "Good sleep!"

"You can't sing ten hours a day, because the muscles, the cords, contract. But three hours a day is okay. Two hours, three hours," Olga says.

"Are you thinking when you're singing an aria?" I ask. "Are you thinking, 'This person died; I'm sad'?"

"I'm not thinking; I'm being that person. How else you can sing the aria? If I sing "Madame Butterfly," I'm Madame Butterfly. If I sing "Tosca", I'm Tosca, in that moment. It's hard to explain, but it is so."

"So you feel it?"

"Absolutely. For what then I'm singing? I'm not singing just to show my pretty voice, or face-it's not interesting."

"And you?" I ask Slava. "Is it similar?"

"I play from inside," he says quietly.

-Sparrow

Sviatoslav Moroz, Olga Dyachcovskaya, and Dmitri Shteinberg will appear October 10 at 8PM at the Colony Café in Woodstock. 679-5342. Recent recordings are available through CarlitoMusic, 679-7390, or e-mail carlitomusic@yahoo.com.