Kozlovsky, Ivan

Kozlovsky, Ivan [Козловський, Іван; Kozlovs’kyj], b 24 March 1900 in Marianivka, Vasylkiv county, Kyiv gubernia, d 24 December 1993 in Moscow. Opera and concert singer (lyrical tenor). A graduate of the Lysenko Music and Drama Institute in Kyiv (1919), he performed as a soloist in the Poltava Touring Music and Drama Theater (see Poltava Zhovten Theater), the Kharkiv opera theater (see Kharkiv Theater of Opera and Ballet) (1924), the Sverdlovsk opera theater (1925), and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow (1926–54). His major roles were Lensky in Peter Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, the Fool in Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Levko in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's A May Night and Berendei in his Snow Maiden, and the title roles in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin and Jules Massenet's Werther. His Ukrainian repertoire included Levko in Mykola Lysenko's The Drowned Girl and Petro in his Natalka from Poltava, Andrii in Mykola Arkas's Kateryna, and Andrii in Semen Hulak-Artemovsky's Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube. He began giving concerts in 1919, including in them arias from Ukrainian operas and art songs by Ukrainian, Russian, and other composers, such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Franz Liszt. His recordings have earned him an outstanding reputation in the United States. He was awarded the Shevchenko Prize in 1990.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Polianovskii, H. Ivan S. Kozlovskii (Moscow–Leningrad 1945)
Kuznetsova, A. Stranitsy zhizni i tvorchestva I.S. Kozlovskogo (Moscow 1964)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]