Valentina Ponomareva
Paradoxes of destiny
Valentina Ponomareva's destiny is veritably unique. Descending from a noble stem of the Lukashovs on her mother's side, she is intricately intertissued with an old Gipsy clan of the Ponomarevs-Erdenko. It was her cousin Mikhail Erdenko who was a world-famous Gipsy violinist and a Europe-touring Moscow Conservatoire professor. It is small wonder that from him sprang a whole constellation of brilliant violinists, with Valentina's father Dmitrii Ponomarev among them.
Dmitrii and his fiancee Irina, a talented pianist herself, came from Kursk to the Moscow Conservatoire to stay. It was her, black of eye and noble of blood, who gave birth to Dmitrii's daughter Valentina. The first sounds that little Valentina found herself immersed into were those of a piano and a violin as the parents were living together with their newborn at the Conservatoire students' hostel. Hardly had little Valentina learned how to walk and talk when she became her pianist mother's student. That was how she started to comprehend classic music. A while later, among her numerous Gipsy relations, young Valentina got into another musical world in which she was charmed by romances and fiery Gipsy songs and participated in home celebrations. Soon it became evident that the girl had an exceptional voice. She was admitted to the Institute of Arts in Khabarovsk in which her family was living at that time and became a student of two (piano and vocal) faculties simultaneously.
Though it seemed that Valentina's musical future had been all set, the paradoxes of her creative pursuits just started to display themselves. That was the time when radio-sets of Khabarovsk easily received Japanese radio stations that were constantly broadcasting jazz. Those strange rhythms and harmonies were irresistible to the Institute of Arts' student. Valentina could listen ever so long to this music that was so new to her. She would later say: "Jazz is my first love." After Valentina had graduated from the Institute of Arts "jumping" over courses and right after her final examinations, she decided against giving herself up to the study of classic singing at the Conservatoire but (and that was a complete surprise to all) accepted the invitation to act on the stage of a drama theater and to play a part of Gipsy Mashenka in Leo Tolstoi's "Animated Corps". And that was the next paradox of the destiny of Valentina Ponomareva, of the girl who had studied classic singing and music, had dreamed of jazz but had made her first appearance on the stage playing a straight part in a performance in which she was also supposed to sing Gipsy songs. The "Not a Night Song" debuted by young actress and singer in the performance contributed greatly to the latter's overwhelming success.
However, with Valentina's hidden passion for jazz again taking control of her, her destiny takes a new turn: Gipsy Masha went to Tallinn to take part in the International Jazz Festival to stun everyone with an incredibly high quality of her vocal improvisations. It was little wonder that she became a soloist with A. Kroll's jazz orchestra, the best jazz crew of the country at that time. Valentina sang jazz classics and, having an inclination to instrumental music, imitated the sound of various instruments with her voice. Later on, this passion will bring about vanguard improvisations: But that will happen later, much later. In the meanwhile, she took a new unexpected step coming to act on the stage of the Roman Moscow Gipsy Theater. This new change in life, precisely as each turn in Valentina's destiny, would prove another step in her stairway to stars.
Hardly had Trio Roman been formed within the theater, when it became almost even more famous and popular than the theater itself, the offshoot of which the Trio was. A stunning country-wide success, world tours, TV and radio performances, and recordings: It seemed that she did not have anything else to dream of. But she did have something to dream
of ... Jazz! Whenever she had the least of opportunities in any part of the world, where the trio was on tour, she looked for jazz clubs and sang there to be later reprimanded heavily but the trio's tutors. After twelve years as a soloist of the Trio Roman, after her twelve star years, her destiny takes the following mysterious turn with Valentina leaving the Trio at the high point of her career and plunging herself into quite another musical world: she took part in numerous rock and jazz festivals, performed and cut her records with those whose name would later become celebrated Russian jazzmen. In 1991-92, this cooperation resulted in a few released albums and Valentina Ponomareva recognized as the Singer of the Year by the Jazz magazine.
Though Valentina Ponomareva's post-Roman creativity seemed to have an evident set towards jazz, she would not have been Valentina Ponomareva if she had not surprised her admirers with new striking zigzags of her artistic destiny. At Andrei Petrov's invitation (and, in all likelihood, as a surprise to herself), she agreed to an offscreen performance of a few romances for Eldar Ryazanov's film "Cruel Romance". That performance brought so many letters from enthusiastic film-goers that the musical editing rooms at the All-Union Radio found themselves piled up with requests for broadcasting the romances and to reveal the name of the performer (for a reason unknown, her name had not been mentioned the film credit titles). Soon after, the performer made her appearance on television and in concerts as a romance singer, which made it evident to all that they were witnessing a rise of a new star of romance. "There is no disputing the logic of my falling in love with a romance", says the singer, "My granny used to sing them, and so did my aunts, brilliant singers of Gipsy romances. When I was young, that singing seemed boring as I used to have more response to rhythm and beat in music then. Later I realized that romance singing demands spiritual riches and experience": The romance genuinely filled her life with new meaning and aspirations. It was not by accident that the program, with which she has toured all over USA, Canada, Japan, and England and now all over Russia, is called "My Soul is the Romance". Nor it has been by accident that since
20 of her romance discs have been released and a new one is awaiting its turn to be
cut - "Ochy chiornye" on Arc Music Productions.
Essentially, after the romance had been so heavily wounded by the struggle for the "proletarian culture" in the 20s and 30s and after its very short-lived renaissance during Khruschev's "Thaw", there were no such a genre as a romance on our stage. In a remarkable manner did Valentina Ponomareva's appearance in the romance horizon coincide with a new flare of interest towards this beautiful genre, and it is very likely that it has been her appearance that has brought about that flare. "Her romances are perfect. She understands what she is singing about, which is so uncommon today. The nobleness and refinement of her manner of singing are astonishing, " - that was how Izabella Yur'eva, the living legend of romance, assessed Valentina's performance she had just heard.
Many events of the singer's life seem striking coincidences: Or the Finger of Fate? In 1983, right at the time when the "Cruel Romance" was going to be released, she met her long-expected partner in life, her husband Konstantin. It is not improbable that this is why there were so much passion and deep feeling in her voice when she was singing those romances because it is only by a woman in love that such feelings can be experienced and relayed by. And isn't this a most beautiful romance in itself? As Miron Petrovskii, an art critic, has put it in his book, "The hand of the clock of the romance goes round in a circle calibrated by moments of love."
This amazing genre is modern and eternally new. If it can be called "old", it would only imply its origin and the nobleness of form. "I treat the romance as an art of today, " - says Valentina Ponomareva. - "I am absolutely sure that it does not appeal only to older generations. First of all, it is easy to love and understand for our young. The main subject matter of the romance is a history of love. Is not illogical that I see many young people at my concerts, that I receive notes and letters from them filled with their thoughts and cassettes with the songs of their own composition. I have long been plagued with the thought of having all these materials systematized and, which is more important, to preserve it. All this has probably started during the days when the "Cruel Romance" hit the cinema-theaters. I was virtually crushed by numerous invitations coming from composers, poets and performing authors. A very interesting material kept accumulating and I was getting more and more firmly set in my desire to pursue the destiny of the "cruel romance" in my singing. I was especially touched by compositions sent to me by amateurs. This was how it occurred to me to cut a disc of sings and romances composed today and frequently especially for me:" This was how the disc titled "My Friends' Romances" appeared in 1992. But even after the disc had been cut and released, cassettes and letters full of excitement and gratitude for introducing them to the world of romance, to the genre which is seemingly not so popular today, kept coming in. And now there is almost enough material of which the next disc dedicated to romances composed by the young will be cut.
It is quite possible to say hardly does this indefatigable woman reaches one top in her career when she rushes to another and each time she does that she surprises one with unexpectedness and, at the same time, complete consistency of everything she is doing. And isn't the story of the play "Demon of Imagination" after Nabokov's writings in which she has played a straight part, the evidence to this fact? Although quite a few years have passed since she debuted with the part of Mashenka, this performance is still well remembered there in far-away Khabarovsk and here she is today, again playing a part in a drama performance. Nevertheless, each her appearance on the stage is always a small spectacle, whichever the genre she takes up: be it a straight part in a play, or a vanguard jazz performance or a romance miniature. "Valentina Ponomareva is a veritably unique singer. She is perfect in anything: a folk song, jazz, classic music and rock style, " - Andrei Petrov, a compositor, said. As it has been repeatedly noted, the sense of style is the factor that unites all those diversified genres in Valentina Ponomareva's artistic career. It seems at times that there is not one but there are different singers who perform at her romance and jazz concerts: this is how complete transformation can be.
What's next? By all means, there will be concerts, tours, studio recordings, and cutting of new discs: And also auditioning and selecting candidates from all over Russia for participation in the All-Russia television contest "Romanciade" on the jury of which she has been since the very day the festival was organized for the first time. She will also participate in charity concerts arranged by the Moscow House of Actors all over the country and abroad. She is also to meet her artistic obligations for the Central House of Workers of Arts, the member of the Board of which she now is.
There are more: Execution of new projects, plans and ideas. "I am alive while my heart-breaking ideas persist", - she says. What else will she amaze us with, this fantastic woman and singer and actress, on the threshold of her next jubilee? Perhaps, even she does not yet know what it will be. But there is no doubt that it will be something as brilliant, unexpected and unpredictable as she herself is. As everything in her destiny is.
