The son of the peasant of the Vyatka province Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin (1837-1901), a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Shalyapins (Shelepins). Chaliapin's mother is a peasant woman from the village of Dudintsy, Kumensky volost (Kumensky district, Kirov region), Evdokia Mikhailovna (nee Prozorova). Ivan Yakovlevich and Evdokia Mikhailovna got married on January 27, 1863 in the Transfiguration Church in the village of Vozhgaly. As a child, Chaliapin was a singer. Received elementary education.

Carier start

Chaliapin himself considered the beginning of his artistic career to be 1889, when he joined the drama troupe of V. B. Serebryakov. Initially, as a statistician.

On March 29, 1890, the first solo performance Chaliapin - the role of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin", staged by the Kazan Amateur Society performing arts. Throughout May and the beginning of June 1890, Chaliapin was a chorus member of V. B. Serebryakov’s operetta company.

In September 1890, Chaliapin arrived from Kazan to Ufa and began working in the chorus of an operetta troupe under the direction of S. Ya. Semenov-Samarsky.

Quite by accident, I had to transform from a chorister into a soloist, replacing a sick artist in Moniuszko’s opera “Pebble.”

This debut brought out the 17-year-old Chaliapin, who was occasionally assigned small opera roles, for example Fernando in Il Trovatore. The following year, Chaliapin performed as the Unknown in Verstovsky's Askold's Grave. He was offered a place in the Ufa zemstvo, but the Little Russian troupe of Dergach came to Ufa, and Chaliapin joined it. Traveling with her led him to Tiflis, where for the first time he managed to take his voice seriously, thanks to the singer D. A. Usatov. Usatov not only approved of Chaliapin’s voice, but, due to the latter’s lack of financial resources, began giving him singing lessons for free and generally took a great part in it. He also arranged for Chaliapin to perform in the Tiflis opera of Ludwig-Forcatti and Lyubimov. Chaliapin lived in Tiflis for a whole year, performing the first bass parts in the opera.

In 1893 he moved to Moscow, and in 1894 to St. Petersburg, where he sang in Arcadia in Lentovsky's opera troupe, and in the winter of 1894-1895. - in the opera partnership at the Panaevsky Theater, in the Zazulin troupe. Beautiful voice aspiring artist and especially his expressive musical recitation in connection with his truthful playing attracted the attention of critics and the public. In 1895, Chaliapin was accepted by the directorate of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters into the opera troupe: he entered the stage Mariinsky Theater and successfully sang the parts of Mephistopheles (Faust) and Ruslan (Ruslan and Lyudmila). Chaliapin’s varied talent was also expressed in the comic opera “The Secret Marriage” by D. Cimaroz, but still did not receive due appreciation. It is reported that in the 1895-1896 season he “appeared quite rarely and, moreover, in parties that were not very suitable for him.”

Creativity flourishes

The years spent at the Russian Private Opera, created by S.I. Mamontov, marked the brilliant rise of Chaliapin’s artistic career. He was a soloist of the Russian Orchestra Orchestra for four seasons - from 1896 to 1899. In the autobiographical book “Mask and Soul,” written in exile (1932), Chaliapin characterizes this short period of his creative life as the most important: “From Mamontov I received the repertoire that gave me the opportunity to develop all the main features of my artistic nature, my temperament.” In the productions of the Mamontov Private Opera, the singer grew into a true stage artist. Here is another fragment of his memoirs, which talks about his initial steps in the Moscow opera group: “S. I. Mamontov told me: - Fedenka, you can do whatever you want in this theater! If you need costumes, tell me and there will be costumes. If you need to put new opera, let's stage an opera! All this dressed my soul in festive clothes, and for the first time in my life I felt free, strong, able to overcome all obstacles.”

Since 1899, he again served in the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow (Bolshoi Theater), where he enjoyed enormous success. He was highly appreciated in Milan, where he performed at the La Scala theater in the title role of Mephistopheles A. Boito (1901, 10 performances). Chaliapin's tour in St. Petersburg on the Mariinsky stage constituted a kind of event in St. Petersburg musical world.

Emigration period

From 1921 ("Enc. Dictionary", 1955) or 1922 ("Theatre Enc.", 1967) he went on tour abroad, in particular in the USA, where his American impresario was Solomon Hurok. When Chaliapin was in France, the Soviet government deprived him of citizenship only because the singer gave money to starving children of the White Guards.

Personal life

Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had 9 children (one died in early age).

Fyodor Chaliapin met his first wife in Nizhny Novgorod, and they got married in 1896 in the church in the village of Gagino. This was the young Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi (Iola Ignatievna Le Presti (after Tornaghi’s stage), died in 1965 at the age of 92), born in the city of Monza (near Milan). In total, Chaliapin had six children in this marriage: Igor (died at the age of 4), Boris, Fedor, Tatyana, Irina, Lydia. Fyodor and Tatyana were twins. Iola Tornaghi lived in Russia for a long time and only in the late 1950s, at the invitation of her son Fedor, she moved to Rome.

Already having a family, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin became close to Maria Valentinovna Petzold (née Elukhen, in her first marriage - Petzold, 1882-1964), who had two children of her own from her first marriage. They have three daughters: Marfa (1910-2003), Marina (1912-2009) and Dasia (1921-1977). Shalyapin's daughter Marina (Marina Fedorovna Shalyapina-Freddy) lived longer than all his children and died at the age of 98.

In fact, Chaliapin had a second family. The first marriage was not dissolved, and the second was not registered and was considered invalid. It turned out that Chaliapin had one family in the old capital, and another in the new one: one family did not go to St. Petersburg, and the other did not go to Moscow. Officially, Maria Valentinovna’s marriage to Chaliapin was formalized in 1927 in Paris.

In 1984, Chaliapin's ashes were transferred from Paris to Moscow, to the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd

• 1894-1895 - hotel "Palais Royal" - Pushkinskaya street, 20;
• 1899 - Kolokolnaya street, 5;
• 1901 - end of 1911 - furnished rooms of O. N. Mukhina - Bolshaya Morskaya Street, 16;
• end 1911 - spring 1912 - apartment building- Liteiny Avenue, 45;
• summer 1912 - autumn 1914 - Nikolskaya Square, 4, apt. 2;
• autumn 1914 - 06.22.1922 - Permskaya street, 2, apt. 3. (now the Memorial Museum-Apartment of F.I. Shalyapin, St. Petersburg, Graftio St., 2B)

Memory of Chaliapin

• In 1956, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Supreme Council of the RSFSR considered “proposals to posthumously restore the title of People’s Artist of the Republic to F. I. Chaliapin,” but they were not accepted. The 1927 resolution was repealed by the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR only on June 10, 1991.
• On February 8, 1982, the first opera festival named after him opened in Kazan, the homeland of Fyodor Chaliapin. The festival is held on the stage of Tatarsky state theater Opera and Ballet named after. M. Jalil, since 1991 has had the status of International.
• October 29, 1984 in Moscow at Novodevichy Cemetery The ceremony of reburial of the ashes of F.I. Chaliapin took place.
• On October 31, 1986, the opening of the tombstone monument to F. I. Chaliapin (sculptor A. Eletsky, architect Yu. Voskresensky) took place.
• On August 29, 1999 in Kazan, a monument to F. I. Chaliapin (sculptor A. Balashov) was erected near the bell tower of the Church of the Epiphany. The monument stands next to the Shalyapin Palace Hotel. In February 1873, Fyodor Chaliapin was baptized in the Church of the Epiphany.
• A monument to Chaliapin was also erected in Ufa.
• Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements and contributions to music.
• In 2003, on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow, next to the house-museum named after F.I. Chaliapin, a monument about 2.5 m high was erected in honor of the great artist. The author of the sculpture is Vadim Tserkovnikov.

Gallery

• Portraits of Chaliapin

Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov: F. I. Chaliapin in the role of Ivan the Terrible, 1897

Caricature by P. Robert of F. I. Chaliapin, 1903

Portrait by B. M. Kustodiev.

Self-portrait of F. Chaliapin in the role of Dosifey (“Khovanshchina”), made on the wall of the artist’s dressing room at the Mariinsky Theater (1911)

Portrait of F. I. Chaliapin on postage stamp USSR 1965, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the artist V. A. Serov.

Awards

• 1902 - Bukhara Order of the Golden Star, III degree.
• 1907 - Golden Cross of the Prussian Eagle.
• 1908 - cavalier officer rank.
• 1910 - title of Soloist of His Majesty (Russia).
• 1912 - title of Soloist of His Majesty the Italian King.
• 1913 - title of Soloist of His Majesty English king.
• 1914 - English Order for special services in the field of art.
• 1914 - Russian Order of Stanislav III degree.
• 1916 - rank of officer.
• 1918 - title of People's Artist of the Republic (awarded for the first time).
• 1934 - Commander of the Legion of Honor (France).

Creation

The surviving gramophone recordings of the singer are of very low quality, so one can judge his work mainly from the memories of his contemporaries. The singer's voice is a high bass (possibly a bass-baritone) of a light timbre, with very pronounced tremulation. Contemporaries note the singer’s excellent diction and his flying voice, which can be heard even in the most distant places from the stage.

According to a common point of view, Chaliapin gained his popularity not so much as a singer, but as an outstanding artist, a master of disguise and artistic word. Tall, stately, with pronounced demonic features faces, with piercing gaze, Chaliapin made an indelible impression in his best tragic roles (Melnik, Boris Godunov, Mephistopheles, Don Quixote). Chaliapin shocked the audience with his frantic temperament, he sang every note, found very precise and sincere intonations for every word of the song, and was absolutely organic and authentic on stage.

Chaliapin's artistic talent was not limited to musical and acting activities. Chaliapin painted well in oils, drew and sculpted, showed great literary abilities, demonstrating in his written works great and quick-witted natural intelligence, extraordinary sense of humor, tenacious powers of observation.

Partners in different years were: A. M. Davydov, T. Dal Monte, D. de Luca, N. Ermolenko-Yuzhina, I. Ershov, E. Zbrueva, E. Caruso, V. Kastorsky, E. Cuza, N. M. Lanskaya, L. Lipkovskaya, F. Litvin, E. Mravina, V. Petrov, T. Ruffo, N. Salina, T. Skipa, P. Slovtsov, D. Smirnov, L. Sobinov, R. Storchio, M. Cherkasskaya, V. Eberle, L. Yakovlev.

Russian opera and chamber singer (high bass).
First People's Artist of the Republic (1918-1927, title returned in 1991).

The son of the peasant of the Vyatka province Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin (1837-1901), a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Shalyapins (Shelepins). Chaliapin's mother is a peasant woman from the village of Dudintsy, Kumensky volost (Kumensky district, Kirov region), Evdokia Mikhailovna (nee Prozorova).
As a child, Fedor was a singer. As a boy, he was sent to study shoemaking with shoemakers N.A. Tonkov, then V.A. Andreev. Received primary education in private school Vedernikova, then at the Fourth Parish School in Kazan, later at the Sixth Primary School.

Chaliapin himself considered the beginning of his artistic career to be 1889, when he joined the drama troupe of V.B. Serebryakov, initially as a statistician.

On March 29, 1890, the first solo performance took place - the part of Zaretsky in the opera “Eugene Onegin”, staged by the Kazan Society of Stage Art Lovers. Throughout May and early June 1890, he was a chorus member of V.B.’s operetta company. Serebryakova. In September 1890, he arrived from Kazan to Ufa and began working in the choir of an operetta troupe under the direction of S.Ya. Semenov-Samarsky.
Quite by accident I had to transform from a chorister into a soloist, replacing a sick artist in Moniuszko’s opera “Galka” in the role of Stolnik.
This debut brought out the 17-year-old boy, who was occasionally assigned small opera roles, for example, Ferrando in Il Trovatore. The following year he performed as the Unknown in Verstovsky's Askold's Grave. He was offered a place in the Ufa zemstvo, but the Little Russian troupe of Derkach came to Ufa, and Chaliapin joined it. Traveling with her led him to Tiflis, where for the first time he managed to take his voice seriously, thanks to the singer D.A. Usatov. Usatov not only approved of Chaliapin’s voice, but, due to the latter’s lack of financial resources, began giving him singing lessons for free and generally took a great part in it. He also arranged for Chaliapin to perform in the Tiflis opera of Ludwig-Forcatti and Lyubimov. Chaliapin lived in Tiflis for a whole year, performing the first bass parts in the opera.

In 1893 he moved to Moscow, and in 1894 to St. Petersburg, where he sang in Arcadia in Lentovsky's opera troupe, and in the winter of 1894-1895. - in the opera partnership at the Panaevsky Theater, in the Zazulin troupe. The beautiful voice of the aspiring artist and especially his expressive musical recitation in connection with his truthful acting attracted the attention of critics and the public to him.
In 1895, he was accepted by the directorate of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters into the opera troupe: he entered the stage of the Mariinsky Theater and successfully sang the roles of Mephistopheles (Faust) and Ruslan (Ruslan and Lyudmila). Chaliapin’s varied talent was also expressed in the comic opera “The Secret Marriage” by D. Cimarosa, but still did not receive due appreciation. It is reported that in the 1895-1896 season he “appeared quite rarely and, moreover, in parties that were not very suitable for him.” Famous philanthropist S.I. Mamontov, who was holding at that time Opera theatre in Moscow, the first to notice Chaliapin's extraordinary talent, he persuaded him to join his private troupe. Here, in 1896-1899, Chaliapin developed artistically and developed his stage talent, performing in a number of responsible roles. Thanks to his subtle understanding of Russian music in general and modern music in particular, he completely individually, but at the same time deeply truthfully created a number of significant images of Russian opera classics:
Ivan the Terrible in “Pskovianka” N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov; Varangian guest in his own “Sadko”; Salieri in his “Mozart and Salieri”; Miller in “Rusalka” by A.S. Dargomyzhsky; Ivan Susanin in “Life for the Tsar” by M.I. Glinka; Boris Godunov in the opera of the same name by M.P. Mussorgsky, Dosifey in his “Khovanshchina” and in many other operas.
At the same time, he worked hard on roles in foreign operas; for example, the role of Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust in his broadcast received amazingly bright, strong and original coverage. Over the years, Chaliapin has gained great fame.

Chaliapin was a soloist of the Russian Private Opera, created by S.I. Mamontov, for four seasons - from 1896 to 1899. In his autobiographical book “Mask and Soul,” Chaliapin characterizes these years of his creative life as the most important: “From Mamontov I received the repertoire that gave me the opportunity to develop all the main features of my artistic nature, my temperament.”

Since 1899, he again served in the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow (Bolshoi Theater), where he enjoyed enormous success. He was highly praised in Milan, where he performed at the La Scala Theater in the title role of Mephistopheles A. Boito (1901, 10 performances). Chaliapin's tours in St. Petersburg on the Mariinsky stage constituted a kind of event in the St. Petersburg musical world.
During the revolution of 1905, he donated proceeds from his performances to workers. His performances with folk songs(“Dubinushka” and others) sometimes turned into political demonstrations.
Since 1914 he has been performing in private opera companies of S.I. Zimina (Moscow), A.R. Aksarina (Petrograd).
In 1915, he made his film debut, the main role (Tsar Ivan the Terrible) in the historical film drama “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible” (based on Lev Mei’s drama “The Pskov Woman”).

In 1917, in the production of G. Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos” in Moscow, he appeared not only as a soloist (the part of Philip), but also as a director. His next directorial experience was the opera “Rusalka” by A.S. Dargomyzhsky.

In 1918-1921 - artistic director Mariinsky Theater.
Since 1922, he has been on tour abroad, in particular in the USA, where his American impresario was Solomon Hurok. The singer went there with his second wife, Maria Valentinovna.

Chaliapin's long absence aroused suspicion and negative attitude in Soviet Russia; so, in 1926 V.V. Mayakovsky wrote in his “Letter to Gorky”:
Or live for you
how Chaliapin lives,
splashed with scented applause?
Come back
Now
such an artist
back
to Russian rubles -
I'll be the first to shout:
- Roll back,
People's Artist of the Republic!

In 1927, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from one of the concerts to the children of emigrants, which was presented on May 31, 1927 in the VSERABIS magazine by a certain VSERABIS employee S. Simon as support for the White Guards. This story is told in detail in Chaliapin’s autobiography “Mask and Soul”. On August 24, 1927, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, he was deprived of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to the USSR; this was justified by the fact that he did not want to “return to Russia and serve the people whose title of artist was awarded to him” or, according to other sources, by the fact that he allegedly donated money to monarchist emigrants.

At the end of the summer of 1932 he performs main role in the film “Don Quixote” by Austrian film director Georg Pabst based on the novel of the same name by Cervantes. The film was shot in two languages ​​at once - English and French, with two casts, the music for the film was written by Jacques Ibert. Location shooting of the film took place near the city of Nice.
In 1935-1936, the singer went on his last tour to Far East, giving 57 concerts in Manchuria, China and Japan. During the tour, his accompanist was Georges de Godzinsky. In the spring of 1937, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and on April 12, 1938, he died in Paris in the arms of his wife. Was buried on Paris cemetery Batignolles. In 1984, his son Fyodor Chaliapin Jr. achieved the reburial of his ashes in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

On June 10, 1991, 53 years after the death of Fyodor Chaliapin, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR adopted Resolution No. 317: “To cancel the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR of August 24, 1927 “On depriving F. I. Chaliapin of the title” National artist“as unreasonable.”

Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had 9 children (one died at an early age from appendicitis).
Fyodor Chaliapin met his first wife in Nizhny Novgorod, and they got married in 1898 in the church of the village of Gagino. This was the young Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi (Iola Ignatievna Le Presti (after Tornaghi’s stage), died in 1965 at the age of 92), born in the city of Monza (near Milan). In total, Chaliapin had six children in this marriage: Igor (died at the age of 4), Boris, Fedor, Tatyana, Irina, Lydia. Fyodor and Tatyana were twins. Iola Tornaghi lived in Russia for a long time and only in the late 1950s, at the invitation of her son Fedor, she moved to Rome.
Already having a family, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin became close to Maria Valentinovna Petzold (née Elukhen, in her first marriage - Petzold, 1882-1964), who had two children of her own from her first marriage. They have three daughters: Marfa (1910-2003), Marina (1912-2009) and Dasia (1921-1977). Shalyapin's daughter Marina (Marina Fedorovna Shalyapina-Freddy) lived longer than all his children and died at the age of 98.
In fact, Chaliapin had a second family. The first marriage was not dissolved, and the second was not registered and was considered invalid. It turned out that Chaliapin had one family in the old capital, and another in the new one: one family did not go to St. Petersburg, and the other did not go to Moscow. Officially, Maria Valentinovna’s marriage to Chaliapin was formalized in 1927 in Paris.

prizes and awards

1902 - Bukhara Order of the Golden Star, III degree.
1907 - Golden Cross of the Prussian Eagle.
1910 - title of Soloist of His Majesty (Russia).
1912 - title of Soloist of His Majesty the Italian King.
1913 - title of Soloist of His Majesty the King of England.
1914 - English Order for special services in the field of art.
1914 - Russian Order of Stanislav III degree.
1925 - Commander of the Legion of Honor (France).

Fyodor Fedorovich Chaliapin was none other than the son of the famous Russian opera bass Shalyapin. He had great acting talent, which was recognized both in Europe and in the USA. The list of films in which he starred is quite long, because he did this from 1926 to 1991.

Shalyapin Fedor Fedorovich: biography

He was born on October 6, 1905 and lived until September 17, 1992. Moscow became Chaliapin's hometown. His father's first wife, Italian prima ballerina Iola Tornaghi, became the mother of twins Fyodor and Tatiana. By the way, in this marriage they had four more children.

Son Fedor received an excellent education in Moscow and could speak three languages. A little later, after the Bolshevik revolution (in 1924), he left his family and moved to his father in Paris. It is known that Boris, his brother, became an artist and quite famous.

Soon, however, Fyodor Fedorovich Chaliapin got tired of being in the shadow of his father and left France for Hollywood, where he began his acting career. Silent films were made back then. His career got off to a successful start and he was lucky because he spoke with a noticeable accent at the time.

Acting profession

However, he did not get the main roles. The advent of sound cinema did not bring Fedor much fame. But nevertheless, Fyodor Fedorovich Chaliapin perfectly played the role of the dying Kashkin in the film “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1943). The public remembered him very well and recognized him.

After the end of the war, he goes to Rome to continue his acting career there. For twenty years, from 1950 to 1970, he played a large number of strong and characterful roles.

Mother

For many years he will not see his own mother, but in 1960, she will move to Rome with him. Of all the valuables, she will only bring her father’s photo albums.

In 1984, he will ensure that his father’s ashes are transported from Paris to Moscow and reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Fedor Fedorovich Chaliapin: films

Surprisingly, success came to the younger Chaliapin when he was already at an advanced age. It all started with the film “The Name of the Rose,” starring Fedor as Jorge of Burgos.

Then there was his other bright role in the film “Moon Power” (in 1987), where he played an old Italian, the grandfather of the heroine, played by the popular American. Then there were other films - “Cathedral” (1989), “Stanley and Iris "(1990).

He played his last role in “The Inner Circle” (1991), this film tells about life in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist dictatorship.

Fyodor Fedorovich Chaliapin died at the age of 86 (in September 1992) in his home in Rome.

Father

Touching on the topic of his son, I would like to digress a little to the father of F.I. Chaliapin (1873, Kazan - 1938, Paris) - extraordinary talented person, who, in addition to his vocal gift, had other talents - an artist, a graphic artist, a sculptor, and even acted in films.

His parents were ordinary peasants. As a child, Chaliapin Fedor (his biography contains these exact facts) was a singer. His artistic career began with joining the troupe of V. B. Serebryakov. Then there were wanderings and development of talent. One day, fate threw him to Tiflis, where he began to seriously study his voice, and all thanks to the singer Dmitry Usatov, whom Chaliapin could not pay for singing lessons, and he studied with him for free.

Search for success

In 1893 he moved to Moscow, and a year later to St. Petersburg. Critics and audiences were stunned by his amazing voice. He began performing roles from the stage of the Mariinsky Theater.

Then the famous Moscow philanthropist S.I. Mamontov persuades him to go to the opera with him (1896-1899). Mamontov allowed the singer to do literally whatever he wanted in his theater - complete freedom of creativity. Since 1899, Chaliapin has been on stage Bolshoi Theater.

In 1918, Chaliapin became the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater and received a “People's Artist” award, and then, in 1922, he went to work in America. The country's leadership at that time was concerned about his long absence. He once donated money to the children of emigrants, but this was considered to be support for the White Guards, and Chaliapin was deprived of the title of “people’s” in 1927. Only in 1991, more than fifty years after the singer’s death, this order was regarded as unfounded and the title was returned.

Personal life

Chaliapin was married twice. He met his first wife, Iola Tornagi, in Nizhny Novgorod (more precisely, in the village of Gagino), and they got married in 1898. She bore him six children - Igor, Boris, Fyodor, Tatyana, Irina and Lydia.

Then Chaliapin had a second family with Maria Valentinovna Petzold, who already had two children from her first marriage. She gave birth to three more girls to the singer: Marfa, Marina and Dasia. He lived for two families. One was in Moscow, the other in Petrograd.

Officially, Chaliapin’s marriage to Maria Valentinovna was formalized in 1927 in Paris.

Chaliapin received many honorary awards, but since 1922 he performed and lived exclusively abroad.

The message about Chaliapin, summarized in this article, will tell you about the life and work of the Russian opera and chamber singer.

Report on Fyodor Chaliapin

Fedor Ivanovich Shalyapin was born on February 13, 1873 in Kazan into the family of a clerk in the zemstvo administration. The parents noticed the little boy had a beautiful treble and sent him to sing church choir, where he learned the basics musical literacy. In parallel with this, Fedor studied shoemaking.

The future Russian singer Fyodor Chaliapin completed only a few classes primary school and went to work as an assistant clerk. One day he visited the Kazan Opera Theater, and art captivated him. At the age of 16, the young man auditions for the theater, but in vain. Serebryakov, the head of the drama group, took Fedora as an extra.

Over time he is assigned vocal parts. The successful performance of the role of Zaretsky (the opera Eugene Onegin) brings him minor success. The inspired Chaliapin decides to change the team to music group Semenov-Samarsky, in which he was accepted as a soloist, and leaves for Ufa.

The singer, who has gained musical experience, is invited to the Little Russian traveling theater of Derkach. Chaliapin tours the country with him. In Georgia, Fedora is noticed by D. Usatov, a vocal teacher, and takes him in for full support. The future singer not only studied with Usatov, but also worked at the local opera house, performing bass parts.

The works of Fyodor Chaliapin

The life of Fyodor Chaliapin changed in 1894, when he entered the service of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theater. It was here that during one performance he was noticed by the benefactor Savva Mamontov, who lured Fedor to his place. Mamontov gave him freedom of choice in his theater regarding the roles performed. He sang parts from the operas “A Life for the Tsar”, “Sadko”, “The Pskov Woman”, “Mozart and Salieri”, “Khovanshchina”, “Boris Godunov” and “Rusalka”.

At the beginning of the twentieth century he appears at the Mariinsky Theater as a soloist. Together with the capital's theater he tours throughout Europe and New York. He performed at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater many times.

In 1905, Fyodor Chaliapin, the singer, was already a fully formed artist who performed songs that were famous at that time. He often gave the proceeds from concerts to workers, which earned him respect from the Soviet authorities.

After the revolution in Russia, Fyodor Ivanovich was appointed head of the Mariinsky Theater and awarded the title of People's Artist of the Republic. But he did not manage to work in the theater field for long in his new position. In 1922, together with his family, the singer emigrated abroad and more to Soviet Russia he didn't perform. After some time, the authorities deprived him of the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

Abroad, he went on tour around the world. After his last tour in the countries of the Far East, Fyodor Ivanovich felt unwell. After medical examination in 1937, he was diagnosed with blood cancer. Doctors said that he would not live more than a year. The great singer died in April 1938 in his Paris apartment.

Fyodor Chaliapin personal life

His first wife was a ballerina Italian origin. Her name was Iola Tornaghi. The couple married in 1896. The marriage produced 6 children - Igor, Boris, Fedor, Tatyana, Irina, Lydia. Chaliapin often went to perform in St. Petersburg, where he met Maria Valentinovna Petzold. She had two children from her first marriage. They began to meet secretly and, in fact, Fyodor Ivanovich started a second family. Double life the artist led him to leave for Europe, where he took his second family. At that time, Maria gave birth to three more children - Martha, Marina and Dasia. Later, Chaliapin took five children from his first marriage to Paris (son Igor died at the age of 4). Officially, the marriage of Maria and Fyodor Chaliapin was registered in Paris in 1927. Although he maintained a friendly relationship with his first wife Iola, he constantly wrote letters to her about the achievements of their children. Iola herself went to Rome in the 1950s at the invitation of her son.

• The music of Fyodor Chaliapin has not been preserved on gramophone recordings in very good condition. good quality. However, contemporaries note his flying, timbre voice with pronounced tremulation.
• Fyodor Chaliapin not only sang. He was interested in sculpture, painting and even starred in 2 films.
• Even in his youth, he auditioned for the choir with M. Gorky. And the team leaders preferred the latter. Chaliapin harbored a grudge against Gorky for the rest of his life, although he did not know the name of his competitor. Once, when meeting with the writer, Fyodor Ivanovich told him this story. And Gorky, laughing, said that he was the offender.
• Has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• He drew beautifully, as evidenced by his “Self-Portrait”.
• He collected weapons.
• His second wife could not officially bear the surname Chaliapin, since he was not divorced from his first wife. There have always been scandals about this in the Western press. Once, even while on tour in New York, the artist was blackmailed by reporters, demanding $10,000 so that information would not go to the people.

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Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin. Born on February 1 (13), 1873 in Kazan - died on April 12, 1938 in Paris. Russian opera and chamber singer (high bass).

Soloist of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters, as well as the Metropolitan Opera Theater, first People's Artist of the Republic (1918-1927, title returned in 1991), in 1918-1921 - artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. He has a reputation as an artist who has combined in his work “natural musicality, bright vocal abilities, extraordinary acting skills" He was also engaged in painting, graphics and sculpture, and acted in films. He had a great influence on world opera.

The son of the peasant of the Vyatka province Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin (1837-1901), a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Shalyapins (Shelepins). Chaliapin's mother is a peasant woman from the village of Dudintsy, Kumensky volost (Kumensky district, Kirov region), Evdokia Mikhailovna (nee Prozorova). Ivan Yakovlevich and Evdokia Mikhailovna got married on January 27, 1863 in the Transfiguration Church in the village of Vozhgaly.

As a child, Chaliapin was a singer. As a boy, he was sent to study shoemaking with shoemakers N.A. Tonkov, then V.A. Andreev. He received his primary education at Vedernikova's private school, then studied at the Fourth Parish School in Kazan, and later at the Sixth Primary School. In May 1885, Chaliapin graduated from college, receiving the highest score - 5.

In September 1885, his father hired Fyodor Chaliapin as a teacher at the newly opened vocational school in Arsk. “I thought,” Chaliapin recalled, “that I was going to some beautiful country, and I was quietly glad that I was leaving Sukonnaya Sloboda, where life was becoming increasingly difficult for me.”

Chaliapin himself considered the beginning of his artistic career to be 1889, when he joined the drama troupe of V. B. Serebryakov, initially as an extra.

On March 29, 1890, Chaliapin’s first performance took place - he performed the part of Zaretsky in the opera “Eugene Onegin” staged by the Kazan Society of Performing Art Lovers. Throughout May and early June 1890, Chaliapin was a chorus member of V. B. Serebryakov’s operetta company.

On September 19, 1890, Chaliapin arrives from Kazan to Ufa and begins working in the choir of an operetta troupe under the direction of S. Ya. Semenov-Samarsky.

He received the solo part of Stolnik in Moniuszko's opera "Pebble", replacing the artist who accidentally fell ill. This debut brought forward the 17-year-old Chaliapin, who was occasionally assigned small opera roles - for example, Ferrando in Il Trovatore. Once, performing as Stolnik, Chaliapin fell on stage, sitting past a chair - since then, all his life he vigilantly watched the chairs on stage, fearing to miss again.

The following year, Chaliapin performed as the Unknown in Verstovsky's Askold's Grave. He was offered a place in the Ufa zemstvo, but the aspiring singer joined the Little Russian troupe of G.I. Derkach that arrived in Ufa. Traveling with her led him to Tiflis, where he was able to take his voice seriously for the first time, thanks to the singer Dmitry Usatov.

Usatov not only approved of Chaliapin’s voice, but, due to the latter’s lack of financial resources, began giving him singing lessons for free and generally took a great part in it. He also arranged for Chaliapin to perform in the Tiflis opera of Ludwig-Forcatti and Lyubimov. Chaliapin lived in Tiflis for a whole year, performing the first bass parts in the opera.

In 1893 he moved to Moscow, and in 1894 to the capital, St. Petersburg, where he sang in Arcadia in Lentovsky's opera troupe, and in the winter of 1894-1895. - in the opera partnership at the Panaevsky Theater, in the Zazulin troupe.

In 1895, Chaliapin was accepted by the directorate of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters into the opera troupe: he entered the stage of the Mariinsky Theater and successfully sang the roles of Mephistopheles (Faust by C. Gounod) and Ruslan (Ruslan and Lyudmila by M. I. Glinka). Chaliapin’s varied talent was also expressed in D. Cimarosa’s comic opera “The Secret Marriage,” but has not yet received proper appreciation.

In the 1895-1896 season, he “appeared quite rarely and, moreover, in parties that were not suitable for him.”

The famous philanthropist S.I. Mamontov, who at that time owned an opera house in Moscow, noticing Chaliapin's outstanding talent, persuaded him to join his troupe. Chaliapin sang at the Mamontov Opera in 1896-1899, and over these four seasons gained great fame. Here he developed artistically and developed his stage talent, performing in a number of solo roles. Thanks to his subtle understanding of Russian music in general and modern music in particular, he individually and deeply truthfully created a number of significant images in such works of Russian composers as “The Woman of Pskov” (Ivan the Terrible), “Sadko” (The Varangian Guest) and “Mozart and Salieri” (Salieri ) N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov; “Mermaid” (Melnik) by A. S. Dargomyzhsky; “Life for the Tsar” (Ivan Susanin) by M. I. Glinka; “Boris Godunov” (Boris Godunov) and “Khovanshchina” (Dosifei) by M. P. Mussorgsky. At the same time, he also worked on roles in foreign operas; Thus, the role of Mephistopheles in C. Gounod’s opera “Faust” received bright, strong and original coverage in his broadcast.

In an autobiographical book "Mask and Soul" Chaliapin characterizes these years of creative life as the most important: “From Mamontov I received the repertoire that gave me the opportunity to develop all the main features of my artistic nature, my temperament.”

In 1899, Chaliapin again entered service in Imperial theaters- this time he sang in Moscow, at the Bolshoi Theater, where he enjoyed enormous success. Chaliapin's tour performances on the imperial Mariinsky stage constituted a kind of event in the St. Petersburg musical world.

In 1901, Chaliapin gave 10 performances in Milan theater La Scala: his performance in the title role in A. Boito's opera "Mephistopheles" was highly praised.

During the revolution of 1905, he donated proceeds from his performances to workers. His performances with folk songs (“Dubinushka” and others) sometimes turned into political demonstrations.

Since 1914 he has performed in the private opera companies of S. I. Zimin (Moscow) and A. R. Aksarin (Petrograd).

In 1915, Chaliapin made his film debut, he played the role of Ivan the Terrible in the historical film drama “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible” (based on the drama “The Pskov Woman” by Lev Mei).

In 1917, during the production of G. Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos” at the Bolshoi Theater, Chaliapin performed not only as a singer, performing the part of Philip, but also as a director. His next directorial experience was the production of A. S. Dargomyzhsky’s opera “Rusalka”. On main party he chooses the young singer K. G. Derzhinskaya.

Since 1918, Chaliapin has been the artistic director of the former Mariinsky Theater. In the same year, he was the first to receive the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

Since 1922, Chaliapin has been on tour abroad, in particular to the USA, where his American impresario was Solomon Yurok. The singer left with his second wife, Maria Valentinovna. His long absence aroused suspicion and negative attitude in Soviet Russia.

In 1927, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from one of the concerts to the children of emigrants, which was presented on May 31, 1927 in the VSERABIS magazine by a certain VSERABIS employee S. Simon as support for the White Guards. This story is told in detail in Chaliapin’s autobiography “Mask and Soul”. On August 24, 1927, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, he was deprived of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to the USSR. This was justified by the fact that he did not want to “return to Russia and serve the people whose title of artist was awarded to him” or, according to other sources, by the fact that he allegedly donated money to monarchist emigrants.

“Proposals for the posthumous restoration of the title of People’s Artist of the Republic to F. I. Chaliapin” were considered by the CPSU Central Committee and Supreme Council RSFSR in 1956, but were not accepted. The 1927 resolution was repealed only 53 years after the singer’s death: on June 10, 1991, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR adopted Resolution No. 317, ordering the repeal of the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR of August 24, 1927 “On depriving F. I. Chaliapin of the title “People’s Artist”” as unreasonable.

At the end of the summer of 1932, Chaliapin starred in films, playing the main role in Georg Pabst’s film “The Adventures of Don Quixote” based on the novel of the same name by Cervantes. The film was shot in two languages ​​at once - English and French, with two casts. The music for the film was written by Jacques Ibert, and location shooting took place near the city of Nice.

In 1935-1936, Chaliapin, together with accompanist Georges de Godzinsky, went on his last tour to the Far East: he gave 57 concerts in Manchuria, China and Japan.

In the spring of 1937, Chaliapin was diagnosed with leukemia, and on April 12, 1938, he died in Paris in the arms of his wife. He was buried in the Batignolles cemetery in Paris.

In 1984, his son, Fyodor Fedorovich, authorized the transfer of the singer’s ashes from France to Russia. This was possible thanks to Baron Eduard Alexandrovich von Falz-Fein, who persuaded him to transfer the ashes to Russia. After the death of Fyodor Fedorovich, the baron bought the Chaliapin family heirlooms that remained in Rome and donated them to the Chaliapin Museum in St. Petersburg. The reburial ceremony took place at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow on October 29, 1984. Two years later it was installed there tombstone works by sculptor A. Yeletsky and architect Yu. Voskresensky.

Personal life of Chaliapin:

Chaliapin was married twice.

Chaliapin met his first wife, Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi (Le Presti), in Nizhny Novgorod. They got married in the church of the village of Gagino in 1898. In this marriage, Chaliapin had six children: Igor (died at the age of 4), Boris, twins Fyodor and Tatyana, Irina and Lydia.

Already having a family, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin became close to Maria Valentinovna Petzold (née Elukhen, 1882-1964), who already had two children from her first marriage. They have three daughters: Marfa (1910-2003), Marina (1912-2009) and Dasia (1921-1977). In fact, Chaliapin had a second family, although the first marriage was not dissolved and the second was not registered. One family lived in Moscow, the second in Petrograd, they did not intersect with each other. The marriage of Maria Valentinovna and Chaliapin was formalized in one of the Russian churches in Prague, during his solo tour, presumably on November 10, 1927.

Of all Chaliapin's children, Marina lived the longest, and died at the age of 98.