Maria Sokil

Maria Ivanivna Sokil (Rudnytsky) (October 18, 1902 – January 20, 1999) was a Ukrainian opera singer.

Biography Sokil was born in the village of Zherebets' (now Tavriiske) in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast on October 18, 1902. She studied at the conservatory in Katerynoslav from 1920 to 1925. She later studied in Italy, France, and Germany.

She made her opera debut in Kharkiv in 1927 in the role of Marguerite in Gounod's opera Faust and became the prima donna lyric soprano of that opera theater. In 1929, she and bass , representative singer from Ukraine, went on a concert tour to Germany and Italy. Maria remained in Kharkiv until 1930; later, she joined the Kyiv Opera (1930–1932). While in Kharkiv she met (1902–1975), whom she married in 1931.

She had success with the roles of Desdemona (Verdi's Otello), Mimi (Puccini's La Bohème), Liu (Puccini's Turandot), Elsa (Richard Wagner's Lohengrin), Tatiana (Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin), Lisa (Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades), Odarka (Hulak-Artemovsky's Zaporozhets za Dunayem), and Natalka (Lysenko's Natalka Poltavka). In 1939, Sokil had the leading role (Odarka) in the motion picture Cossacks in Exile (Zaporozhets za Dunayem), made in the United States. Maria Sokil and her husband subsequently continued their musical activities in several different ways for many years in the United States.

She died on January 20, 1999, in Youngstown, Ohio, at the age of 96.

Children: Dorian Rudnytsky (born 1944), cellist and composer (born 1942), pianist

Grandchildren: Tara Palmer (Rudnytsky) Evan Rudnytsky Oksana McStowe (Rudnytsky) Damian Rudnytsky