Irina Bikulova:
"Ambition is one of the main assets of the actor"

The Opera soloist Irina Bikulova admits, that she has become a singer due to her mother, for whom the vocal career has remained the dream which didn’t come true. She is still Irina’s strictest and dearest teacher. Irina says she has always had marvellous teachers who themselves had their schooling at the Bolshoi Theatre. In the musical college – Elena Dmitrievna Kruglikova, in the Conservatoire – Bela Andreevna Rudenko. At the theatre the best Opera accompanist took the young singer under her care, and Boris Alexandrovich Pokrovsky taught her to behave and feel on the stage as if in life.

- Irina, one can rightfully say that you have been raised by the Bolshoi Opera. Which events, which people in particular shaped your creative personality?

- When I first appeared in the theatre, I happened to find myself in the class of the remarkable accompanist Liah Abramovna Mogilevskaya. Being ambitious in the best meaning of this word, she is perfectly able to share her disposition with her pupils. It seems to me that ambition can be the powerful driving force behind every creative development, I believe it to be one of the main virtues of the actor. It is neither envy, nor self-confidence, but an authentic ambition, that makes you do your task better, express yourself to the utmost. Otherwise there is no moving forward… I do not know, how others feel about that…probably, I am a bit lazy, but it’s a great stimulus for me to go on working and not be happy with the things I’ve already achieved. I’m very grateful to the conductors I have met when started my Opera career. All of them communicated with me with so much patience, were so tactful and understanding … But what I consider to be the most essential thing that happened to me then is meeting Boris Alexandrovich Pokrovsky. He took the pains of shaping a Moscow Conservatoire student into a Bolshoi Theatre singer. The process took a lot of efforts and tears out of me, too. Our first joint effort was Òatiana in Pokrovsky’s production of " Eugene Înegin " in 1991. I could neither move on the stage nor act properly. It was Boris Alexandrovich who taught me all that. I have never met a more talented opera director. He has profound understanding of vocal art, he unmistakably sees each singer’s acting and vocal abilities. He feels the ways to show him or her to the best advantage, the sound of the actor’s voice contributes naturally to the performance of the orchestra and acting. The work was extremely exciting and extremely hard. When the rehearsal was over I would leave the theatre and walk to Kuznetsky Most, all in tears. My first roles were literally washed with tears. Pokrovsky’s requirements were tremendously high. Some people around tried to calm me down and to comfort me by saying that the more he shouts at you, the higher he appreciates your prospects. But frankly speaking their reasons seemed too weak to comfort… Then we started working on the role of Agnesse in " The Maiden of Orleans " and the title role in " Francesca da Rimini ".

- Your Conservatoire teacher, the Bolshoi Opera soloist Bela Rudenko was always very convincing on stage. Did she teach you miming and acting?

- I can’t say she did it when I was a student. As our main goal was to master vocal skills, we concentrated on singing techniques and expressiveness. But later at the theatre she helped me a lot, because she used to sing the same roles - for example, Marfa in " The Tsar’s Bride ",- and prompted some scenic nuances. We had a good deal of class work and I always found the classes very interesting.

- Which of your roles are your dearest?

- Well, probably, if a role hadn’t accorded closely with my soul and voice, it’d have been difficult to sing… Certainly, some of them take more efforts, others come easier, in terms of singing or acting, but I don’t think I would agree to part with any of them. I love all my roles, still Tatiana and Mimi are a bit closer to my heart than the others." La Boheme ", like all the other Puccini scores, is a real feast for my soul. I get pleasure out of performing Lu in "Òurandot", which is, to my mind, a tremendously beautiful and elegant production.

- Say a few words about your family. How old is your daughter?

- Vasilisa is seven. She goes to school, dances, she has been studying music since four. She gets on rather well, though she is awfully lazy. I often see her trying to practise warm-up exercises together with me. I feel I may stumble and ask her not to bother me, but at that very moment our dog usually ‘tunes into’. Here is our trio. I do not know…, Vasilisa may have a good singing voice in due course. But I’m still in two minds whether I would like her to come into profession, as our profession is far from being easy. My husband is a musician, too, he plays a bass-clarinet in the state orchestra.

- Have you ever thought of teaching?

- Bela Andreevna suggested I be her assistant at the Conservatoire. But I still have a very vague idea of me as a teacher. It implies huge responsibility, in my opinion. If you teach somebody wrongly, you will ruin his or her life. Being a teacher is akin to being mother, at least this is my experience. And, besides, I’m always learning things myself, all the time.