Dear Gentlemen,

In this blog I have tried to assemble a list of prominent Soviet tenors – tenors behind the Iron Curtain – singers the careers of which went largely obscure from the Western public because of the political realities of the era they were part of – realities which dictated the detachment of the Soviet opera from its Western counterpart.
It just so happened that these times were the Golden Era of the Russian Opera, and the voices that were hidden behind the Iron Curtain were of a remarkable quality.
In addition to that, the revival of these voices in the West is also of much interest because of the unique character and the idiosyncratic nature of the Soviet school of operatic singing, which was different from the Western in many aspects.
By “voices behind the Iron Curtain” I mean those artists whose entire career or a significant part of it developed during the most ideologically radical years of the Soviet rule and the Soviet Union’s disconnection from the West, and not those who had already established a name for themselves in an earlier period, or those who have only started their way in Soviet Union’s very last days or are singing well into the present – both are more familiar to the Western public.
In cases of some of the singers the information and the recordings presented here is all that is left of them, and in some cases appears for the first time in the internet, or in English and for the Western public.

You can reach me at:


Mihail Dovenman (1911)






Born on August 7th in Odessa in the family of a conditeur. When he was a child he appeared in a vocal duet with his older brother. Studied in a technical school of the food industry. Then went to work in the Caucasus area. The director in his work place was an opera-lover, and sent him to St. Petersburg for vocal studies.  He studied in a vocal seminary (class of M.A.Leybovich), then at the Leningrad conservatory (class of Sofia Akimova). Studied acting with Ivan Ershov. Made his debut at the conservatory where he sang Rodolfo and Lenski. His debut took place at the end of the 1930ies at the St-Petersburg Kirov Opera Theater as Prince Igor. During the Second World War Dovenman was a soloist in an army ensemble, and from 1943 performed at the St-Petersburg Malyi Theater, where he sang up to the mid 1960-ies. Among his roles: Sinodal, Duke, Lensky, Calaf, Fenton, Astrologer, Evangelist. Generally used to perform in all the tenor roles beside Othello and Canio. Gave his last concert in the age of 70.