БОРИС ГМИРЯ: пісня Карася / Borys Hmyria Video

S. Gulak-Artemovskiy

Zaporozhian beyond the Danube

Opera in three acts

Libretto by S. Gulak-Artemovskiy
Script changes by M. Rylskiy
Music changes by V. Yorish

SYNOPSIS

Act I

On the Danube bank in the territory of the Turkish provinces. The Cossack Ivan Karas yard. Tormented Zaporozhians* abroad dream of going back home to the Ukraine. Going to the fields to mow, they sing about the beloved motherland. Oksana, Karas step daughter, is homesick, too. She awaits her beloved, Cossack Andrey, and worries about what has happened to him. This night, under cover of the darkness, he is to cross the Danube and bring important news from the Ukraine.
Karas comes home. Like the other Cossacks, he dreams of escaping the Turkish dependency. His friends and he plot a return to the motherland. Some drinking relaxes the tense men.
Odarka approaches, her voice can be heard. Karas tries to avoid the meeting with his shrewish wife; he hides, but all in vain. The spouses start a quarrel: angry, Odarka resents her bitter fate, accusing her husband of being missing from home too often. She doesnt believe the explanations that Karas gives her anymore and chases him from the yard.

Act II

Night is falling.
The Sultan appears on the Danube bank. Feeling that the Cossacks are plotting something, he decides to learn more about the life and the customs of the Zaporozhians, and to try to predict their thoughts and moods. The Sultan disguises himself as an ordinary Turk and orders his servants to leave him on his own.
In a conversation with Karas, the Sultan understands that the Cossacks aim to return to their country. The Sultan promises to help Karas enter the Palace and to tell the Sultan what the Cossacks want. Somebody brings Turkish garments, Karas changes into them and goes to visit the Sultan.
Cossacks and young women come back from the fields. They sing again about the motherland. Then dancing starts: youths celebrate the Festival of the harvest.
Oksana is the only one who doesnt participate in the crowds fun. She worries about Andreys fate. She sings a love song as she waits sorrowfully.
Andrey arrives. Oksana and he make each other a promise of fidelity and decide to run away together to the Ukraine.

Act III

Odarka sings a lyrical song while waiting for Karas.
Karas returns. He is angry. He didnt manage to see the Sultan in the Palace. The only person with whom
he shared the truth about the Cosacks hard life and their intention to fight against this, is the Turkish stranger with the beard.
Karas wants to cheer Odarka so he imitates the Turk. Odarka believes that Karas has lost his mind completely when he jokes with her that he has decided to divorce her and marry a Turkish woman. In an emotional moment, she curses her destiny, not realizing that Karas is only teasing her.
Suddenly Turkish guards arrive, headed by the representative of the Sultan, Ibrahim-Ali. They bring the captive Oksana and Andrey.
The Imam announces to the crowd that he is there with a decree from the Sultan. It says in it that the Sultan immediately requires all the Cossacks to be gathered and Ivan Karas to be found. Everybody freezes in apprehension.
The Imam reads out the Sultans decree: all Zaporozhians are allowed to go back to their home land, and Oksana and Andrey are forgiven. Andrey starts to sing a patriotic song which people repeat in joy and festivity. Zaporozhians glorify their home the Ukraine.

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Zaporozhian*-~Cossack, a native or with origins from the ancient region of Zaporozhia (lands of the lower Dnepr) Cossack. Zaporozhian Cossacks used to gather and train in an armed camp, situated in the same area, called Zaporozhian Sich. Due to migration processes some of them spread to large territories, even