1930 – 1991
He studied at the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts (a student of Roman Selskyi). He was expelled from the institute in 1959 in the midst of an anti-abstraction campaign. A year later, renewed, in 1961 he graduated.
From 1961 he began working at the Lviv National Opera with Fedir Nirod, from 1967 to 1991 he was the main artist of the theater.
In 1978-1980 he was also the chief artist of the Minsk Opera and Ballet Theater in Belarus; staged in theaters in Kyiv, Donetsk, Odessa, Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Warsaw, Skopie, Ankara.
He was a lecturer at the Department of Monumental Painting of the Lviv Academy of Arts. Today his students are the chief artist of the Lviv National Opera, National Artist of Ukraine Tadei Ryndzak and the artist-producer of the Lviv National Opera, National Artist of Ukraine Mykhailo Ryndzak.
Each of his performances is characterized by philosophical, high imagery, subtle penetration into the musical score of the work, impressive emotionality. He was a monumentalist with a deep immersion in the idea of the work. Lysyk did not limit himself to sketches, but completed stage panels with his own hands. Today, the backdrops to his performances, preserved in the Lviv Opera, are evidence of great talent.
But, like Fedir Nirod, Lysyk had problems with censorship. An illustrative case occurred in September 1978, when the “delivery” for the commission of the folk opera “Fern Flower” by Y. Stankovych with soloist Nina Matvienko and the choir of H. Virovka took place.
For the play, Lysyk made four backdrops for each season. On them in the center of a giant wreath (a thorn in the “Winter”) three trees were placed in composition, on which children with candles (“Spring”) sat in nests or Cossacks (“Autumn”) were crucified. The commission saw in three trees the embodiment of the idea of a trident and demanded the immediate removal of a tree, preferably two. Children also needed to be drawn, they resembled angels. Lysyk flatly refused to destroy the plan. So all the scenography was destroyed. And now Lysyk’s fern blooms on a smaller scale – only in sketches.
The director of the New York Metropolitan Opera for Lysyk was ready to dismantle the walls of the theater. One American millionaire during artist’s visit to the USA, suggested building a museum for the Lysyk theatrical works in Iowa. He was offered to buy one of his author’s horizons for 100 thousand US dollars. Composer Aram Khachaturian admitted after the premiere of “Spartak” that at the request of Lysyk he could rewrite his music. And the director Serhiy Paradzhanov called Lysyk a genius who was born in Lviv. The artist’s works were exhibited at the Prague Quadrennial, exhibitions “Artists of Theater and Cinema”.
National Artist of the USSR (1975), winner of the T. Shevchenko State Prize. (1971)
