INTERPRETATION PECULIARITIES OF OPERA ARIAS OF AZERBAIJANI AND WESTERN EUROPEAN COMPOSERS PERFORMED BY MUSLIM MAGOMAYEV

Absract Muslim Magomayev (1942-2008) is an outstanding singer who played a significant role in the history of vocal musical culture in Azerbaijan and the world. Arias from operas by various composers occupy an important place in Magomayev’s creative activity. He turned to these arias from the earliest stages of his career and managed to create unique pieces of art. The article thoroughly analyses the vocalist’s performance of opera arias and gives a distinct explanation of his performance principles. It should be noted that the peculiarities of M. Magomayev’s performance of opera arias have not been scientifically and theoretically studied and extensive research has not been previously carried out. The purpose of this research is to identify Magomayev’s principles of performing opera arias, the interpretation features of some of the works performed by the singer. The research methodology consists of various analysing methods of vocal performance. All this is presented in connection with the information about the singer published in various newspapers and magazines, and some moments from his life. The performance analysis carried out in the article is associated with the theoretical foundations for vocal science. Along with it, the analysis of vocal performance is presented on note samples. The scientific novelty of the research. It is for the first time M. Magomayev’s opera aria creativity has been reviewed, and the singer’s vocal peculiarities and his method of approaching the images have been determined. The study includes performance analyses of samples of musical works by Azerbaijani and Western European composers, as well. Conclusions. M. Magomayev gave priority to addressing opera arias by various composers in his repertoire. One of the main features of Magomayev’s performance is the preservation of the style of any aria during the performance. This is manifested both in a variety of performance techniques and in various ways of artistic expression. The singer brought out the subtle details of each image and transforms them into a characteristic feature of the protagonist. In these arias, he could demonstrate all capabilities of his voice. Features of his voice character, including the strength, volume range, good state of the voice apparatus, a wide range of vocal performance techniques and rich voice


Introduction
People's Artist of the USSR, world famous vocalist, composer, legendary musician Muslim Magomayev (1942Magomayev ( -2008, who conquered the hearts of millions of listeners, is one of the brightest representatives of the Azerbaijani vocal school of the 20th century. M. Magomayev's art, his unique performances became a symbol of the 60-70s of the 20th century. The singer's creative activity is a new stage in the vocal art of Azerbaijan. M. Magomayev was a vocalist with a wide range of voice, unique and rich timbre, unique style of performance, and impeccable technique of performance. One of the main characteristic features of the singer's creative activity is his ability to perform in both the classical and pop genres, combine absolutely different styles of performance (Muravitska, 2019, p. 85). In his vocal repertoire, along with classical works of Western European, Russian and Azerbaijani composers, he paid special attention to pop songs and continued both genres in parallel until the last stage of his career. The study of his life and creative activity, as well as his principles of performing opera arias is of great importance to be carried out.

Purpose of the research
Opera performance has a prominent place in Azerbaijan-born baritone singer Muslim Magomayev's creative work. The main purpose of the article is to take a more detailed look into the eminent vocalist's operatic activity. Among other important issues, this article also addresses the vocalist's opera activity and pinpoint the interpretive features of various arias performed by him.
tions. Muslim Magomayev's wide-ranging operatic repertoire allows us to assess him as a singer with mind-boggling versatility in many styles. For example, he performed Valentine's and Figaro's Cavatine, Mizgir's Arioso, Eugene Onegin's aria as a lyric baritone, while he sang Aslan Shah's and Rigoletto's arias, Iago's monologue as a dramatic baritone. In his performance of these arias, his singing was expressive and strong with a tint of richness in the voice. Magomayev was able to penetrate into every character he created: he is suspicious and angry in the guise of a character named Aslan Shah, or horrible in Mefistofele. These arias are just small scenes from operas. Nevertheless, it gives the impression that as if he performed the entire piece, not just an aria. The features portraying any character in an aria are conveyed in their entirety and profundity. This time we reveal another feature peculiar to his singing. Thus, Magomayev succeeded in conveying to the audience a primary mail character he created, not in common features, but in subtleties specific to this character. We can characterize this point as Muslim Magomayev's method of approaching the piece. At the same time, the feature that we have mentioned above enabled him to create different characters and to show a very different approach. An article appeared in the July 31 st , 1964 issue of the Russian-language newspaper "Molodezh Azerbaidzhana" ("Azerbaijani Youth") highlighted Muslim Magomayev's concert in Moscow. The article reported that a rich repertoire required great creative opportunities from a vocalist. "Such a colourful repertoire is a source of pride for a vocalist, because it is not enough to have exceptional vocal skill and to recite the lyrics to the music for perfect performance, let alone Muslim Magomayev's remarkable artistic talent. Each of these arias and romances with extremely wide vocal diapason creates a complex, sometimes contradictory world full of emotions and moods. The ability to sing the arias is passed on the performer capable of penetrating into the essence of the composer's thinking as well as conveying them to the audience in a unique way" (Romadinova, 1964). Apparently, for such a repertoire, a vocalist should have a set of means of expression. This skill employed by Muslim Magomayev allowed him not only to perform these arias, but also served as an indicator showing the vocalist's huge talent. The arias performed by him are the most difficult pieces of music composed both for vocal performance and baritone in terms of character and content as well as for bass timbre.
Professional singers generally add opera roles to their repertoire at a certain stage of their career. Since the singing voice, the vocal folds, and all the organs involved in sound production as a whole should be technically prepared to withstand this load. In the vocal methodology, the age-character principle plays an important role in selecting musical pieces. This principle manifests itself in a completely different way in Muslim Magomayev's career. Already at the age of 25, the singer added most of the arias to his repertoire. According to his biography, he started singing at the age of 14: "I felt my voice was more mature when I was 14" (Magomayev, 1999, p. 21). This gives reason to say that his voice changed when he was 12. Given that Magomayev's first performances coincided with the period when he was 14, the level of his ability to navigate complex music in his repertoire assortment at a young age can be assessed as the perfect level of his voice matured in a short time. In his Russian-language article A Journey to the Land of Bel Canto, the opera singer shared his views how he managed difficult musical roles, such as Figaro and Scarpia: "During my graded music qualifi-Bulletin of Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts. Series in Musical Art 2020 • 3(2) • 204-217 ISSN 2616-7581 (Print) ISSN 2617-4030 (Online) 207 cation abroad, I spent six months on preparing Figaro from G. Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Scarpia from Puccini's "Tosca". Many will probably think that this age (22) is too young to sing Scarpia, but I performed all the parts with the permission of my coaches" (Magomayev, 1964, p. 3). This once again points out the fact that the opera singer's voice allowed him to easily cope with many roles. Therefore, Muslim Magomayev's teachers let him perform them.
The arias performed by the opera singer are mainly middle-aged characters including: Rigoletto, Demon, Mefistofele, Aslan Shah, and Scarpia.
The essence of Muslim Magomayev's creative work lies in its interpretation. Before exploring the principles of interpretation in his career, it would be useful to look at certain features of musical performance. Interpretation is a creative process with a complex structure. Musical performance depends on the period to which it relates as well as on the composer, the performer's skill and the artistic content of the work. The Russian-language Soviet Encyclopedia defines the term 'interpretation' as follows: Musical performance i.e. Interpretatio, originated from Latin, means 'to explain'. The interpretation is subject to aesthetic principles, individual characteristics of a school or trend the singer belongs to, as well as the artistic design of the content of the piece it shapes. Interpretation requires an individual approach to music, commitment to it and the opera singer's own creative position in reflecting the author's

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intentions" (Keldysh, 1990, p. 214). This leads to conclusion that the realization of the interpretation is closely related to these three main factors, which can also be considered as the principles of interpretation for the vocalist's opera performance. To that end, Magomayev used a number of means of expression. So, the structure of his opera performance can be presented as follows: The performer's principle of interpretation is a complex creative process accompanied by a hierarchical structure, and is carried out under certain objective rules. Vocal performance techniques are the basis for the hierarchical structure. That is to say, different types of sound production and conduction, different breathing techniques, etc. are used here. The means of artistic expression, built on techniques of vocal performance, is aimed at fully reproducing the musical content, and is used in different forms depending on the period they belong to.
Given all the above-mentioned points, below we will analyse the performance features of certain arias.
Muslim Magomayev is one of the best interpreters of Azerbaijani composers' opera music. Aslan Shah's aria from Magomayev's Shah Ismail occupies an important place in the vocalist's creativity.
The prominent vocalist combined his song writing and performing skills in Aslan Shah's aria. The studies showed that he used Aslan Shah's arias from the first and last scenes of the opera. People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR Afrasiyab Badalbeyli

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says: "Muslim, is a composer as well. His songs, composed on poems by renown poets, won the sympathy of the audience. The aria he composed, by combining Aslan Shah's monologues in the first and last scenes from his grandfather's Shah Ismail opera is also one of his musical compositions" (Badalbeyli, 1973, p. 3).
It is worth noting that Muslim Magomayev not only benefited from the musical material, but also combined both arias to create a piece with artistic content. Simultaneously, he changed the original words or lyrics to the musical piece. Thus, the aria in the opera is sung with the text "Ey vəzirlər, dərdim artır gündən-günə" (You, viziers, my pain is growing day by day).' Among the recordings available to us, the text of only one of the performances staged at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre is sung like "Əhvalım ey vəzirlər bilmirəm nədən" (My mood, oh my visiers, I don't know why) (Mansurov, 2014).
Magomayev sang the aria with the words "Əhvalım ey vəzirlər bilmirən nədən" (My mood, oh my viziers, I don't know why). The vocalist combined the two arias from the opera in the second stage of his career. Since in his 18-year-old audio recording, only the monologue from the opera's first act had been performed. The performance was analysed on the performance given M. Magomayev's Personal Website (http://www. magomaev.info/new-audio/Music/redkoe/high/razn/Aslan-shakh.mp3). It should be noted that Aslan Shah's aria was performed throughout all stages of the vocalist's career, being an inseparable part of his opera repertoire. He was able to convey the sadness and dramatic quality passing through a character's mind.
Gara Garayev's songs also held an important place in his work. He repeatedly addressed the renown composer's pieces and performed some of them. Among these compositions, we would particularly like to emphasize Mardan's aria, which was performed in the first act of the opera Vatan (Motherland) composed jointly with Jovdat Hajiyev, one of Azerbaijan's composers. Mardan's aria is a lyrical dramatic monologue in terms of content. The aria exhibits his feelings in full depth. "In the aria, Mardan, who misses his lover, deeply and sincerely expresses his exhausting jealousy and suffering about lost hopes. The wide-ranging breathing melody and the breadth expression peculiar to the opera arioso style in the aria organically combine with mugham intonations, which are lyrically full, charming and dramatically recited" (Gasimova, 2009, p. 196).
Muslim Magomayev's high performance potentiality, unique timbre, bright and unique personal qualities as a vocalist were contingent upon distinctively interpreting the Gara Garayev -Jovdat Hajiyev music. It is one of his best performances in terms of delivering the artistic concept of Mardan's aria in a clearer, more dramatic and deeper way, expressing with his own emotions feelings of excitement passing through a character's mind, and building sentences properly and musically.
Arias This aria addresses to Cherubino, in which Figaro gently mocks Cherubino, teasing him about his military fate and heroism. According to the content of the work, the music of the aria is fast, sharp and is in the style of a military march. The character of the military march in the piece is given by a dotted rhythm. The aria is set in C major, the vocal range is the lower octave 'do' and the first octave 'mi' (c-e 1 ). It is constructed in rondo form.
In the first refrain, the vocalist used the nuance of portamento. The musician sounds dotted notes sharply and briskly. Here "Non piu andrai, farfallone amoroso, notte e giorno d'intorno girando" is performed in the mixed register in metso-forte dynamics; "delle belle turbando il riposo" in the full chest voice register in forte dynamics, and the musical expression "Narcisetto Adoncino d'amor" in the head voice register and "d'amor" is performed lightly. The dramatic power lies in the repetitive third and fourth musical expressions. The refrain part undergoes various changes throughout the piece and is performed in different forms. During the second performance of the refrain, the vocalist softly sings the first musical sentence. During the performance, Magomayev achieved rhythmic pulsation by making small touches to strong beats.

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In this part, the musical expressions are concisely performed in accordance with the classical music style and are clear in terms of content. Musical expressions are combined under one idea.
Along with the refrain, the episodic parts of the musical piece are very rich from timbral point of view. There are two episodes in the aria. The first episode is smaller than the second one. The vocalist sang "Non piu avrai bel pennacchini" in the head register using a soft voice output. Starting with "Quella chioma, quell'aria brillante", he switched to chest voice and harsh voice production. The construction principle of the part "Non piu avrai quest bei pennacchini" is the same. The head register, soft voice production, speech intonation are replaced by the transition to harsh voice production and chest voice register. The culmination point of the musical work falls on the second episode. The vocalist prefered the same performance techniques there. However, their alternation and use depending on the content add variety to the aria.
Following is the means of expression used by Magomayev in this aria: 1) Use of head, mix and chest voice registers; 2) Taking advantage of the nuance of Portamento; 3) Dynamics; 4) Accurate intonation; 5) Soft and harsh voice delivery. The composition varies between piano-forte in terms of dynamics. The portamento nuance used by the vocalist brings his performance closer to recitativo and enriches it with speech intonation. Combining with vocal performance techniques recitativo causes a colourful timbral sounding.
While characterizing Magomayev's performance, it is worth pointing out the voice volume and power. Vocalists with dramatic vocal features have certain performance difficulties while addressing composers of the Viennese classical school, especially Mozart's music. And this brings Muslim Magomayev's approach to the fore in a different way. The interpretive features of Mozart's arias performed by Magomayev can also be characterized as a change in his voice power and tone.
The vocalist's voice is distinguished here with more compactness, and he uses his voice volume in a balanced way. It comes from the characteristic features of style and aesthetics of the epoch of classism. Beyond that, the tone of the musician's voice is bright and light. This feature allows him to take a more precise approach to a composer's style. Plus, due to the lightness, he gets certain mobility in his voice.
Another piece to be analysed is Rigoletto's aria from Verdi's "Rigoletto". This aria created by Magomayev went down in art history as the most perfect sample of opera music in his career. It is Rigoletto's aria "Cortigiani, vil raza dannata" (liederoperagreats, 2020b).
The fact that Magomayev could widely expand his baritone voice timbre thanks to Giuseppe Verdi's greatest contributions to the opera genre. In the composer's musical pieces, the baritone timbre has important characteristics such as a wide range and power.
However, the change in the requirements of the baritone timbre was due to the aesthetic thinking of the time. These requirements proved to use the whole range of voice, the need for more power, colourful dynamics, further enrichment of tones, timbral fullness, emotionality, to name a few. The greater demand for voice power led to different use of voice transmission and breathing techniques. The symphonizing of orchestral accompaniment called for strong and wide-ranging voices.
Rigoletto is a complex dramatic role. In this aria, the information relating to the character is based on scientific research made on Giuseppe Verdi's creativity in opera (Solovtsova, 1981, pp. 152-167;Valikhova, 1971, pp. 39-91). The complexity of the character exhibited in this aria manifests itself both in terms of content and performance. This aria is sometimes called the protagonist's aria-monologue. Hatred, anger and supplication are the main storylines of the aria. It consists of three parts. The specific peculiarities of the first part are dramatism, the protagonist's anger and hatred; the second part -hopeless, and the last part -supplication.
The tonality of the aria was written in c-Moll, yet the vocalist performed it in cismoll. As the musical work was a tone higher, it affected the sounding as well. In Muslim Magomayev's interpretation, high notes are performed brightly, and bass sounds in a high position. The registers sound smoothly in the vocalist's performance.
The vocalist uses a harsh sound production in the first part of the aria. Here the acoustic transmission is based on the legato. The voice character is sharp, precise, fluent and dramatic. This part is recitative. Depending on the word stress, the vocalist creates a sense of support in the performance through making small touches. In the second part of the piece, the nature of the character completely changes. The intonations of entreaty come to the fore. Here it mainly used soft sound production and very expressive sound transmission. The second part draws attention with its perfect legato, with the smooth and plane transmission of sounds to one another. The dynamic plan of the musical work performed by Magomayev varies between ppff. The presence of long musical sentences in this section requires the performer to use breathing techniques more effectively.
The third part is distinguished by its lyrical interpretation. Here the despair and tragedy of the primary character becomes deeper. While talking about the performance techniques used in the aria, depending on the content of the text, the pronunciation of words, their coming to the fore and other points can be emphasized. The vocalist has used expression means, such as legato and portamento.
Muslim Magomayev created a perfect musical dramaturgy of Rigoletto in one aria. In his performance, drama, entreaty and tragedy are the main content lines, and the nature of his voice changes depending on the content. This testifies the richness of intonation in the artist's creativity. One of the important conditions of Italian vocal techniques is the pronunciation. The vocalist pronounces the text in accordance with all the rules of the Italian language. At the same time, the timbral tones performed by him are directly associated with the pronunciation of consonants. The performer used consonant letters in the aria masterly.

Conclusions
The interpretation of operas by various composers is of great importance in Magomayev's work. Starting from the early stages of his career as a vocalist, he sang arias from operas by various composers. These arias vary in genre, performance style and language. His vocal abilities allowed him to perform the most difficult musical pieces written for bass and baritone timbres. An aria performed by him has become a perfect sample of art. Thus, in the vocalist's performance, the inner qualities of a character are fully conveyed, and each aria is reminiscent of a small musical scene. Magomayev performed arias in his repertoire while maintaining his own style of performance. In this sense, his Leporello, Iago, Onegin or Germont are characters with different characteristics. At the same time, the vocalist showed his approach to the musical work not only in terms of style, but also based on the features common to the composer's music. These points were also focused during the analysis. Once again, this is confirmed by the performance characteristics of Figaro's aria from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" and Rigoletto's aria from Giuseppe Verdi's "Rigoletto". This manifests itself both in the variety of performance techniques and in the use of the artistic expression in a different manner. All this reflects the interpretive features of his operatic arias. Indeed, he performed the arias in Azerbaijani, Italian, German and Russian. Magomayev's performance is distinguished by its accuracy and fluency.
Arias from operas from Azerbaijan composers also play an important role in Mogomayev's creativity. During his vocal career, he sang Hasan Khan's aria from Uzeyir Hajibeyli's opera Koroglu, Aslan Shah's aria from Muslim Magomayev's opera Shah Ismayil and Mardan's aria from Jovdat Hajiyev-Gara Garayev's opera Vatan. These musi-cal pieces gained a new interpretator through him. He could demonstrate his individual creative attitude here as well. Thus, as it was stated at the beginning, he combined Aslan Shah's two arias sounded in the opera Shah Ismayıl. Along with performing abilities, Magomayev's composing skills also played a big role. Mardan's aria in his interpretation was enriched both in terms of content and character. The performance of opera arias in the vocalist's musical work manifests itself as the following: -the preservation of the style of the piece he performed; -the use of different vocal performance techniques; -maintaining the composer's text; -conveying the nature of the characters; -the richness of artistic expression means; -using multiple languages; -further enrichment of characters in terms of content. Muslim Magomayev's attitude to each aria is distinguished by its seriousness and profundity. The vocalist's approach to the composer's text, his creative searches, his delivery to the character and aesthetic taste testify the high professionalism of his interpretation. Musical drama is of great importance in the vocalist's creative work. It envisages the construction of a musical work in terms of performance, its form and its realization using means of expression. These three features act together in each of the musical pieces he performed.
Analysis of certain arias he performed enables us to assess him as a skilled performer. His opera stage creativity and adding various opera arias to his repertoire confirm his high voice qualities as a vocalist. So, Azerbaijan enriched its art of vocal performance and raised it to a new level thanks to Muslim Magomayev's musical creativity.