Born into the family of peasant Ivan Yakovlevich from the village of Syrtsovo, who served in the zemstvo government, and Evdokia Mikhailovna from the village of Dudinskaya, Vyatka province.

At first, little Fyodor, trying to get him “into business,” was apprenticed to the shoemaker N.A. Tonkov, then V.A. Andreev, then to a turner, later to a carpenter.

IN early childhood He developed a beautiful treble voice and often sang with his mother. At the age of 9 he began singing in church choir, where he was brought by regent Shcherbitsky, their neighbor, and began to make money from weddings and funerals. The father bought a violin for his son at a flea market and Fyodor tried to play it.

Later Fedor entered the 6th city four-year school, where there was a wonderful teacher N.V. Bashmakov, who graduated with a diploma of commendation.

In 1883, Fyodor Chaliapin went to the theater for the first time and continued to strive to watch all the performances.

At the age of 12, he began participating in the performances of the touring troupe as an extra.

In 1889 he joined the drama troupe of V.B. Serebryakov as a statistician.

On March 29, 1890, Fyodor Chaliapin made his debut as Zaretsky in the opera by P.I. Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin", staged by the Kazan Society of Amateurs performing arts. Soon he moves from Kazan to Ufa, where he performs in the choir of the troupe S.Ya. Semenov-Samarsky.

In 1893, Fyodor Chaliapin moved to Moscow, and in 1894 to St. Petersburg, where he began singing in the Arcadia country garden, at the V.A. Panaev and in the troupe of V.I. Zazulina.

In 1895, the directorate of the St. Petersburg Opera Houses accepted him into the troupe. Mariinsky Theater, where he sang the parts of Mephistopheles in “Faust” by C. Gounod and Ruslan in “Ruslan and Lyudmila” by M.I. Glinka.

In 1896, S.I. Mamontov invited Fyodor Chaliapin to sing in his Moscow private opera and move to Moscow.

In 1899, Fyodor Chaliapin became the leading soloist of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and, while touring, performed with great success at the Mariinsky Theater.

In 1901, Fyodor Chaliapin gave 10 triumphant performances at La Scala in Milan, Italy, and went on a concert tour throughout Europe.

Since 1914, he began performing in private opera companies of S.I. Zimin in Moscow and A.R. Aksarina in Petrograd.

In 1915, Fyodor Chaliapin played the role of Ivan the Terrible in the film drama “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible” based on the drama “The Pskov Woman” by L. Mey.

In 1917, Fyodor Chaliapin acted as a director, staging D. Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos” at the Bolshoi Theater.

After 1917 he was appointed artistic director Mariinsky Theater.

In 1918, Fyodor Chaliapin was awarded the title People's Artist Republic, but in 1922 he went on tour to Europe and stayed there, continuing to perform successfully in America and Europe.

In 1927, Fyodor Chaliapin donated money to a priest in Paris for the children of Russian emigrants, which was presented as help “to the White Guards in the fight against Soviet power” on May 31, 1927 in the magazine “Vserabis” by S. Simon. And on August 24, 1927, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, by decree, deprived him of the title of People's Artist and forbade him to return to the USSR. This resolution was canceled by the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR on June 10, 1991 “as unfounded.”

In 1932 he starred in leading role in the film “The Adventures of Don Quixote” by G. Pabst based on the novel by Cervantes.

In 1932 -1936 Fyodor Chaliapin went on tour to the Far East. He gave 57 concerts in China, Japan, and Manchuria.

In 1937 he was diagnosed with leukemia.

On April 12, 1938, Fedor died and was buried in the Batignolles cemetery in Pargis in France. In 1984, his ashes were transferred to Russia and on October 29, 1984, reburied at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Chaliapin Fedor Ivanovich (1873─1938) is a great Russian chamber and opera singer, who brilliantly combined unique vocal abilities with acting skills. He performed roles in high bass and as a soloist at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera. He directed the Mariinsky Theater, acted in films, and became the first People's Artist of the Republic.

Childhood years

Fedor was born on February 1, 1873 in the city of Kazan.
The singer's father, Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin, was a peasant originally from the Vyatka province. Mother, Evdokia Mikhailovna ( maiden name Prozorova), was also a peasant from the Kumenskaya volost, where the village of Dudintsy was located at that time. In the village of Vozhgaly, in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Ivan and Evdokia got married at the very beginning of 1863. And only 10 years later their son Fyodor was born; later a boy and a girl appeared in the family.

My father worked in the zemstvo government as an archivist. Mom did hard day labor, washed people’s floors, and washed clothes. The family was poor, there was barely enough money to live on, so Fedora and early years began to teach various crafts. The boy was sent to be trained by a shoemaker and turner, a woodcarver, a carpenter, and a copyist.

It also became clear from an early age that the child had excellent hearing and voice; he often sang along with his mother in a beautiful treble.

Neighbor of the Chaliapins, church regent Shcherbinin, hearing the boy’s singing, brought him with him to the Church of St. Barbara, and they sang the all-night vigil and mass together. After this, at the age of nine, the boy began singing in the suburban church choir, as well as at village holidays, weddings, prayer services and funerals. For the first three months, Fedya sang for free, and then he was entitled to a salary of 1.5 rubles.

Even then, his voice did not leave listeners indifferent; later Fedor was invited to sing in churches in neighboring villages. He also had a dream - to play the violin. His father bought him an instrument at a flea market for 2 rubles, and the boy began to learn to draw the bow on his own.

One day, the father came home very drunk and spanked his son for unknown reasons. The boy ran off into the fields out of resentment. Lying on the ground by the lake, he sobbed bitterly, and then he suddenly wanted to sing. As he began to sing, Fyodor felt his soul lighter. And when he fell silent, it seemed to him that the song was still flying nearby somewhere, continuing to live...

Early years

Parents, despite poverty, cared about giving their son an education. His first educational institution became private school Vedernikov, then followed by the fourth parish Kazan and sixth elementary schools. Last Chaliapin graduated in 1885, receiving a certificate of merit.

In the summer of the same year, Fyodor worked in the zemstvo government as a clerk, earning 10 rubles a month. And in the fall, his father arranged for him to study in Arsk, where a vocational school had just opened. For some reason, young Chaliapin really wanted to leave the settlement; it seemed to him that a beautiful country was waiting for him ahead.

But soon the young man was forced to return home to Kazan, because his mother fell ill, and he had to take care of her and his younger brother and sister.

Here he managed to join a theater troupe that toured Kazan, he participated in performances as an extra. However, Fyodor’s father did not like this hobby; he told him: “You should go to the janitors, not to the theater, then you will have a piece of bread.” But young Chaliapin was simply a theater fan from the very day when he first attended the production of the play “Russian Wedding.”

The beginning of the theatrical journey

When the young man was 15 years old, he turned to the theater management with a request to audition him and accept him as a choir member. But at this age, Fyodor’s voice began to change, and during the audition he did not sing very well. Chaliapin was not accepted, but this did not in any way affect his love for the theater, it only grew stronger every day.

Finally, in 1889, he was accepted as an extra in Serebryakov’s drama troupe.
At the beginning of 1890, Chaliapin performed for the first time as an opera singer. It was “Eugene Onegin” by P. I. Tchaikovsky, Zaretsky’s part. And in the fall, Fedor left for Ufa, where he joined the local operetta troupe, in many performances he got small roles:

• Stolnik in “Pebble” Moniuszko;
• Ferrando in Il Trovatore;
• Unknown in Verstovsky's Askold's Grave.

And when did it end theater season, a Little Russian traveling troupe arrived in Ufa, Fyodor joined it and went on tour to Russian cities, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In Tiflis, Chaliapin met Professor Dmitry Usatov, who once served at the Imperial Theater. This meeting turned out to be vital for Fedor; the professor invited him to stay for his studies, and did not demand money from him for this. Moreover, he not only put his voice young talent, but also helped him financially. And at the beginning of 1893, Chaliapin made his debut at the Tiflis Opera House, where he worked for almost a year, performing the first bass parts.

At the end of 1893, Fedor moved to Moscow, and the following year to the capital, St. Petersburg. The aspiring actor, his beautiful voice, truthful acting and stunning expressive musical recitation attracted the attention of both the public and critics.

In 1895, Fyodor Ivanovich was accepted into the Mariinsky Theater.

Prosperity, success and fame

At that time, the famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov lived in Moscow, he held opera house and persuaded Chaliapin to come to him, offering a salary three times more than at the Mariinsky Theater. Fyodor Ivanovich agreed and worked for Mamontov in the theater for about four years from 1896. Here he had the repertoire that allowed him to show all his temperament and artistic talent.

Since 1899, Chaliapin entered the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, the success of his performances was enormous. Then they often liked to repeat that there are three miracles in Moscow - the Tsar Bell, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bass (this is about Chaliapin). And when he came on tour to the Mariinsky stage, for St. Petersburg it became a grandiose event in the world of art.

In 1901, ten of his performances took place at La Scala in Milan. The fee for tours was unheard of at that time, now Fyodor Ivanovich was increasingly invited abroad.

They say about Chaliapin that he best bass of all peoples and times. He was the first Russian singer to be recognized in the world. He created unique and great characters in opera, which to this day no one can surpass. They say that you can re-sing an opera, but you can never surpass Chaliapin.

Critics argue that it was only thanks to his opera roles that many Russian composers received global recognition.

Work	Composer	The image created by Chaliapin
"Mermaid"	Dargomyzhsky A.	Miller
"The Barber of Seville"	G. Rossini	Don Basilio
"Boris Godunov"	Mussorgsky M.	monk Varlaam and Boris Godunov
"Mephistopheles"	A. Boito	Mephistopheles
"Ivan Susanin"	Glinka M.	Ivan Susanin
"Pskovite"	N. Rimsky-Korsakov	Ivan the Terrible
Ruslan	Glinka M.	"Ruslan and Lyudmila"

In 1915, Fyodor Ivanovich made his film debut, playing the role of Tsar Ivan the Terrible.

Since 1918, he directed the Mariinsky Theater and at the same time was the first to receive the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

The singer's total repertoire consists of 70 opera roles and about 400 romances and songs.
No wonder Maxim Gorky said about Chaliapin: “In Russian art, he is an era, like Pushkin.”

Personal life

The first wife of Fyodor Chaliapin was Iola Tornaghi. They say that opposites attract, probably following this law, they, completely different, were so strongly drawn to each other.

He, tall and bass-voiced, she, thin and small ballerina. He didn't know a word Italian, she did not understand Russian at all.

The young Italian ballerina was in her homeland a real star, already at the age of 18 Iola became the prima of the Venetian theater. Then came Milan and French Lyon. And then her troupe was invited to tour to Russia by Savva Mamontov. This is where Iola and Fyodor met. He liked her immediately, and the young man began to show all sorts of attention. The girl, on the contrary, remained cold towards Chaliapin for a long time.

One day during a tour, Iola fell ill, and Fyodor came to see her with a pot of chicken broth. Gradually they began to get closer, a romance began, and in 1898 the couple got married in a small village church.

The wedding was modest, and a year later the first-born Igor appeared. Iola left the stage for the sake of her family, and Chaliapin began touring even more in order to earn a decent living for his wife and child. Soon two girls were born into the family, but in 1903 grief occurred - the first-born Igor died of appendicitis. Fyodor Ivanovich could hardly survive this grief; they say that he even wanted to commit suicide.

In 1904, his wife gave Chaliapin another son, Borenko, and the following year they had twins, Tanya and Fedya.

But the friendly family and happy fairy tale collapsed in one moment. In St. Petersburg, Chaliapin appeared new love. Moreover, Maria Petzold was not just a mistress, she became a second wife and mother three daughters Fyodor Ivanovich. The singer was torn between Moscow and St. Petersburg, and tours, and two families, he flatly refused to leave his beloved Tornaghi and five children.

When Iola found out everything, she hid the truth from the children for a long time.

In 1922, Chaliapin emigrated from the country with his second wife Maria Petzold and daughters. Only in 1927 in Prague did they officially register their marriage.

The Italian Iola Tornaghi remained in Moscow with her children and survived both the revolution and the war here. She returned to her homeland in Italy only a few years before her death, taking with her from Russia only a photo album with portraits of Chaliapin.

Of all Chaliapin’s children, Marina was the last to die in 2009 (daughter of Fyodor Ivanovich and Maria Petzold).

Emigration and death

In 1922, the singer went on tour to the USA, from where he never returned to Russia. At home, he was deprived of the title of People's Artist.

In the summer of 1932, he starred in a sound film, where he played Don Quixote. And in 1935-1936 his last tour took place; he gave 57 concerts in Japan and China, Manchuria and the Far East.

In the spring of 1937, doctors diagnosed Chaliapin with leukemia. A year later, on April 12, 1938, he died in Paris in the arms of his second wife. He was buried in the Batignolles cemetery. In 1984, the singer’s ashes were transported from France to Russia. In 1991, the decision to deprive Chaliapin of the title of People's Artist was canceled.

Fyodor Ivanovich returned to his homeland...

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (b. 1873 - d. 1938) - great Russian opera singer (bass).

Fyodor Chaliapin was born on February 1 (13), 1873 in Kazan. 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). As a child, Chaliapin was a singer. Received an elementary education.

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, Chaliapin's first solo performance took place - the role 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.

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 “Galka”. 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 seriously practice his voice, 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 join the Tiflis opera of 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 1894/5 - in an opera company at the Panaevsky Theater, in Zazulin's 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 of the Mariinsky Theater and sang with success 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. Cimaroz, but still did not receive due appreciation. It is reported that during 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 at that time ran an opera house in Moscow, was the first to notice Chaliapin’s extraordinary talent and persuaded him to join his private troupe. Here in 1896-1899. Chaliapin developed artistically and developed his stage talent, performing in a number of roles. Thanks to his subtle understanding of Russian music in general and modern music in particular, he created a completely individual, but at the same time deeply truthful a whole series types in Russian 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 gained great fame.

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 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 joined progressive circles and donated proceeds from his speeches to revolutionaries. 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).

Since 1918 - artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. Received the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

Chaliapin's long absence aroused suspicion and negative attitude in Soviet Russia; Thus, in 1926, Mayakovsky wrote in his “Letter to Gorky”: “Or should you live, / as Chaliapin lives, / with scented applause / daubed? / Come back / now / such an artist / back / to Russian rubles - / I will be the first to shout: / - Roll back, / People’s Artist of the Republic!” In 1927, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from one of his concerts to the children of emigrants, which was interpreted and presented as support for the White Guards. In 1928, 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.

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

On October 29, 1984, a ceremony for the reburial of the ashes of F.I. Chaliapin took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

The opening took place on October 31, 1986 tombstone the great Russian singer F. I. Chaliapin (sculptor A. Eletsky, architect Yu. Voskresensky).

Fyodor Chaliapin is a Russian opera and chamber singer. IN different times he was a soloist at the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theaters, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera. Therefore, the work of the legendary bass is widely known outside his homeland.

Childhood and youth

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was born in Kazan in 1873. His parents were visiting peasants. Father Ivan Yakovlevich moved from the Vyatka province, he was engaged in work unusual for a peasant - he served as a scribe in the zemstvo administration. And mother Evdokia Mikhailovna was a housewife.

As a child, little Fedya was noticed with a beautiful treble, thanks to which he was sent to the church choir as a singer, where he received the basics of knowledge musical literacy. In addition to singing in the temple, the father sent the boy to be trained by a shoemaker.

Having completed several classes primary education with honors, the young man goes to work as a clerk's assistant. Fyodor Chaliapin will later remember these years as the most boring in his life, because he was deprived of the main thing in his life - singing, since at that time his voice was going through a period of withdrawal. This is how the career of the young archivist would have gone on, if one day he had not attended a performance at the Kazan Opera House. The magic of art has forever captured the young man’s heart, and he decides to change his career.

At the age of 16, Fyodor Chaliapin, with his bass voice already formed, auditioned for the opera house, but failed miserably. After this, he turns to the drama group of V. B. Serebryakov, in which he is hired as an extra.

Gradually young man began to order vocal parts. A year later, Fyodor Chaliapin performed the role of Zaretsky from the opera Eugene Onegin. But he doesn’t stay long in the dramatic enterprise and after a couple of months he gets a job as a choir member in musical troupe S. Ya. Semenov-Samarsky, with whom he leaves for Ufa.

As before, Chaliapin remains a talented self-taught person who, after several comically disastrous debuts, gains stage confidence. The young singer is invited to a traveling theater from Little Russia under the direction of G.I. Derkach, with whom he makes a number of first trips around the country. The journey ultimately leads Chaliapin to Tiflis (now Tbilisi).

In the capital of Georgia, the talented singer is noticed by vocal teacher Dmitry Usatov, a former famous tenor of the Bolshoi Theater. He takes on a poor young man to fully support him and works with him. In parallel with his lessons, Chaliapin works as a bass performer at the local opera house.

Music

In 1894, Fyodor Chaliapin entered the service of the Imperial Theater of St. Petersburg, but the severity that reigned here quickly began to weigh on him. By luck, a benefactor notices him at one of the performances and lures the singer to his theater. Possessing a special instinct for talent, the patron discovers incredible potential in the young, temperamental artist. He gives Fyodor Ivanovich complete freedom in his team.

Fyodor Chaliapin - "Black Eyes"

While working in Mamontov's troupe, Chaliapin revealed his vocal and artistic abilities. He sang all the famous bass parts of Russian operas, such as “The Woman of Pskov”, “Sadko”, “Mozart and Salieri”, “Rusalka”, “A Life for the Tsar”, “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina”. His performance in Faust by Charles Gounod still remains exemplary. He will subsequently recreate similar image in the aria “Mephistopheles” at the La Scala theater, which will earn him success among the world public.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Chaliapin has appeared again on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater, but this time in the role of a soloist. With the capital's theater, he tours European countries, appears on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, not to mention regular trips to Moscow, to the Bolshoi Theater. Surrounded by the famous bass, you can see the entire color of the creative elite of that time: I. Kuprin, Italian singers T. Ruffo and. Photos have been preserved where he is captured next to his close friend.

In 1905, Fyodor Chaliapin especially distinguished himself solo performances, on which he sang romances and famous ones at that time folk songs“Dubinushka”, “Along St. Petersburg” and others. The singer donated all the proceeds from these concerts to the needs of workers. Such concerts of the maestro turned into real political actions, which later earned Fyodor Ivanovich honor from Soviet power. In addition, friendship with the first proletarian writer Maxim Gorky protected Chaliapin’s family from ruin during the “Soviet terror.”

Fyodor Chaliapin - "Along along Piterskaya"

After the revolution new government appoints Fyodor Ivanovich as head of the Mariinsky Theater and awards him the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. But the singer did not work in his new capacity for long, since with his first foreign tour in 1922 he immigrated abroad with his family. He never appeared on the stage of the Soviet stage again. Years later, the Soviet government stripped Chaliapin of the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR.

The creative biography of Fyodor Chaliapin is not only his vocal career. In addition to singing, the talented artist was interested in painting and sculpture. He also starred in films. He got a role in the film of the same name by Alexander Ivanov-Gay, and also participated in the filming of the film by German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst “Don Quixote”, where Chaliapin played the main role of the famous windmill fighter.

Personal life

Chaliapin met his first wife in his youth, while working at the Mamontov private theater. The girl's name was Iola Tornaghi, she was a ballerina Italian origin. Despite his temperament and success with women, the young singer decided to tie the knot with this sophisticated woman.

Over the years life together Iola gave birth to Fyodor Chaliapin six children. But even such a family did not keep Fyodor Ivanovich from making radical changes in his life.

While serving at the Imperial Theater, he often had to live in St. Petersburg, where he started a second family. At first, Fedor Ivanovich met his second wife Maria Petzold secretly, since she was also married. But later they began to live together, and Maria bore him three more children.

Double life the artist continued until his departure to Europe. The prudent Chaliapin went on tour with his entire second family, and a couple of months later five children from his first marriage went to join him in Paris.

Of Fedor’s large family, only his first wife Iola Ignatyevna and eldest daughter Irina. These women became the guardians of the opera singer's memory in their homeland. In 1960, the old and sick Iola Tornaghi moved to Rome, but before leaving, she turned to the Minister of Culture with a request to create a museum of Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin in their house on Novinsky Boulevard.

Death

Chaliapin went on his last tour of the countries of the Far East in the mid-30s. He gives over 50 solo concerts in cities of China and Japan. After this, returning to Paris, the artist felt unwell.

In 1937, doctors diagnosed him with cancer blood: Chaliapin has one year left to live.

The great bass died in his Paris apartment in early April 1938. For a long time, his ashes were buried on French soil, and only in 1984, at the request of Chaliapin’s son, his remains were transferred to a grave at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

True, many historians consider the death of Fyodor Chaliapin quite strange. And the doctors unanimously insisted that leukemia with such a heroic physique and at such an age is extremely rare. There is also evidence that after touring Far East The opera singer returned to Paris in a sick condition and with a strange “decoration” on his forehead - a greenish lump. Doctors say that such neoplasms arise from poisoning with a radioactive isotope or phenol. The question of what happened to Chaliapin on tour was asked by local historian from Kazan Rovel Kashapov.

The man believes that Chaliapin was “removed” by the Soviet government as unwanted. At one time, he refused to return to his homeland, plus, through an Orthodox priest, he provided financial assistance poor Russian emigrants. In Moscow, his act was called counter-revolutionary, aimed at supporting the White emigration. After such an accusation, there was no longer any talk of returning.

Soon the singer came into conflict with the authorities. His book “The Story of My Life” was published by foreign publishers, and they received permission to print from the Soviet organization “ International book" Chaliapin was outraged by such an unceremonious disposal of copyrights, and he filed a lawsuit, which ordered the USSR to pay him monetary compensation. Of course, in Moscow this was regarded as the singer’s hostile actions against the Soviet state.

And in 1932 he wrote the book “The Mask and the Soul” and published it in Paris. In it, Fyodor Ivanovich spoke out in a harsh manner towards the ideology of Bolshevism, towards Soviet power and in particular towards.

Artist and singer Fyodor Chaliapin

In the last years of his life, Chaliapin showed maximum caution and did not allow suspicious persons into his apartment. But in 1935 the singer received an offer to organize tour in Japan and China. And during a tour in China, unexpectedly for Fyodor Ivanovich, he was offered a concert in Harbin, although initially the performance was not planned there. Local historian Rovel Kashapov is sure that it was there that Doctor Vitenzon, who accompanied Chaliapin on this tour, was given an aerosol canister with a toxic substance.

Fyodor Ivanovich's accompanist, Georges de Godzinsky, states in his memoirs that before the performance, Vitenzon examined the singer's throat and, despite the fact that he found it quite satisfactory, “sprayed it with menthol.” Godzinsky said that further tours took place against the backdrop of Chaliapin’s deteriorating health.

February 2018 marked the 145th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian opera singer. In the Chaliapin house-museum on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow, where Fyodor Ivanovich lived with his family since 1910, admirers of his work widely celebrated his anniversary.

Arias

• Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin): Susanin’s Aria “They Smell the Truth”
• Ruslan and Lyudmila: Rondo Farlafa “Oh, joy! I knew"
• Rusalka: Miller’s Aria “Oh, that’s all you young girls”
• Prince Igor: Igor’s Aria “Neither sleep, nor rest”
• Prince Igor: Konchak’s Aria “Are you well, Prince”
• Sadko: Song of the Varangian guest “On the formidable rocks the waves break with a roar”
• Faust: Mephistopheles' Aria "Darkness Has Descended"

Coming from peasant family, Fyodor Chaliapin performed at the most prestigious theaters in the world - the Bolshoi, Mariinsky, and Metropolitan Opera. Among the admirers of his talent were composers Sergei Prokofiev and Anton Rubinstein, actor Charlie Chaplin and the future English king Edward VI. The critic Vladimir Stasov called him a “great artist”, and Maxim Gorky called him a separate “era of Russian art”

From the church choir to the Mariinsky Theater

“If everyone knew what a fire smolders inside me and goes out like a candle...”- Fyodor Chaliapin said to his friends, convincing them that he was born to be a sculptor. Already famous opera performer, Fyodor Ivanovich drew a lot, was engaged in painting, and sculpted.

The painter's talent was evident even on stage. Chaliapin was a “virtuoso of makeup” and created stage portraits, adding a bright picture to the powerful sound of the bass.

The singer seemed to be sculpting his face; contemporaries compared his manner of applying makeup to the paintings of Korovin and Vrubel. For example, the image of Boris Godunov changed from painting to painting, wrinkles and gray hair appeared. Chaliapin-Mephistopheles in Milan caused a real sensation. Fyodor Ivanovich was one of the first to apply makeup not only to his face, but also to his hands and even his body.

“When I went on stage dressed in my costume and made up, it caused a real sensation, very flattering for me. Artists, choristers, even workers surrounded me, gasping and delighted, like children, touching with their fingers, feeling, and when they saw that my muscles were painted on, they were completely delighted.”

Fyodor Chaliapin

And yet, the talent of the sculptor, like the talent of the artist, served only as a frame for the amazing voice. Chaliapin sang from childhood - in a beautiful treble. Coming from a peasant family, back in his native Kazan he studied in the church choir and performed at village holidays. At the age of 10, Fedya visited the theater for the first time and dreamed of music. He mastered the art of shoemaking, turning, carpentry, and bookbinding, but only the art of opera attracted him. Although from the age of 14 Chaliapin worked in the zemstvo government of the Kazan district as a clerk, still free time he gave to the theater, appearing on stage as an extra.

A passion for music led Fyodor Chaliapin with nomadic troupes across the country: the Volga region, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. He worked part-time as a loader, a hookman, and was starving, but he waited for his finest hour. One of the baritones fell ill on the eve of the performance, and the role of Stolnik in Moniuszko’s opera “Galka” went to the chorister Chaliapin. Although the debutant sat past the chair during the performance, the entrepreneur Semyonov-Samarsky was moved by the performance itself. New parties appeared and confidence in the theatrical future grew stronger.

“I still think superstitiously: good sign for a newcomer to sit past a chair in the first performance on stage in front of an audience. Throughout my subsequent career, however, I kept a vigilant eye on the chair and was afraid not only of sitting past, but also of sitting in another’s chair.”, - Fyodor Ivanovich later said.

At the age of 22, Fyodor Chaliapin made his debut at the Mariinsky Theater, singing Mephistopheles in the opera Faust by Gounod. A year later, Savva Mamontov invited young singer to the Moscow Private Opera. “From Mamontov I received the repertoire that gave me the opportunity to develop all the main features of my artistic nature, my temperament”- said Chaliapin. The young summer bass gathered a full hall with his performance. Ivan the Terrible in "The Woman of Pskov" by Rimsky-Korsakov, Dosifey in "Khovanshchina" and Godunov in the opera "Boris Godunov" by Mussorgsky. “One more great artist”, - wrote about Chaliapin music critic Vladimir Stasov.

Fyodor Chaliapin in the title role in the production of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. Photo: chtoby-pomnili.com

Fyodor Chaliapin as Ivan the Terrible in a production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Woman of Pskov.” 1898 Photo: chrono.ru

Fyodor Chaliapin as Prince Galitsky in the production of Alexander Borodin's opera "Prince Igor". Photo: chrono.ru

"Tsar Bass" Fyodor Chaliapin

It was as if the art world was just waiting young talent. Chaliapin communicated with the best painters of that time: Vasily Polenov and the Vasnetsov brothers, Isaac Levitan, Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin and Mikhail Vrubel. The artists created amazing scenery that emphasized the vivid stage images. At the same time, the singer became close to Sergei Rachmaninov. The composer dedicated the romances “You Knew Him” to Fyodor Tyutchev’s poems and “Fate” based on a poem by Alexei Apukhtin to Fyodor Chaliapin.

Chaliapin is a whole era of Russian art and since 1899 the leading soloist of the country's two main theaters - the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. The success was so enormous that contemporaries joked: “There are three miracles in Moscow: the Tsar Bell, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bass - Fyodor Chaliapin”. Chaliapin's high bass was known and loved in Italy, France, Germany, America, and Great Britain. The audience received an enthusiastic reception from opera arias, And chamber works, and romances. Wherever Fyodor Ivanovich sang, crowds of fans and listeners gathered around. Even while relaxing at the dacha.

The triumphal tours were stopped by the First World War. The singer, at his own expense, organized the operation of two hospitals for the wounded. After the 1917 revolution, Fyodor Chaliapin lived in St. Petersburg and was the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. A year later, Tsar Bas was the first artist to receive the title of People's Artist of the Republic, which he lost when he went into exile.

In 1922, the artist did not return from a tour of the United States, although he believed that he was leaving Russia only for a while. Having toured the whole world with concerts, the singer performed a lot at the Russian Opera and created a whole “theater of romance”. Chaliapin's repertoire consisted of about 400 works.

“I love gramophone records. I am excited and creatively excited by the idea that the microphone symbolizes not a specific audience, but millions of listeners.", - said the singer and recorded about 300 arias, songs and romances. Leaving rich heritage, Fyodor Chaliapin did not return to his homeland. But until the end of his life he never accepted foreign citizenship. In 1938, Fyodor Ivanovich died in Paris, and half a century later, his son Fyodor obtained permission to rebury his father’s ashes at the Novodevichy cemetery. At the end of the twentieth century, the great Russian opera singer returned the title of People's Artist.

"Chaliapin's innovation in the field of dramatic truth opera art turned out to be strong impact to the Italian theater... The dramatic art of the great Russian artist left a deep and lasting mark not only in the field of performing Russian operas Italian singers, but also in general on the entire style of their vocal and stage interpretation, including the works of Verdi..."

Gianandrea Gavazzeni, conductor and composer