Petrusenko, Oksana Andreevna

Born Feb. 5 (17), 1900, in Malaia Balakleia, in present-day Kharkov Oblast; died July 15, 1940, in Kiev. Soviet Ukrainian lyric-dramatic soprano. People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1939).

Petrusenko, a pupil of P. K. Saksaganskii, was a most important representative of the Ukrainian school of singing. She had great dramatic abilities and a rich expressive voice of great range. Petrusenko was particularly outstanding in roles from Ukrainian national operas, including the title role in Lysenko’s Natalka Poltavka and Oksana in Gulak-Artemovskii’s The Zaporozhian Cossack Beyond the Danube. She was also well known for her roles in works by Russian classical composers. Petrusenko performed in concert, singing Ukrainian folk songs with much feeling. She was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.