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.

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Ivan Shvedov (1898)





Born on December 25th in the village of Liptsi, near the city of Kharkov. Acclaimed Artist of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic (1940).
Studied in Kharkov Musical-Dramatic Institute in 1926-1931 (class of M.Chemezov).
In 1929-33 – soloist of the Kharkov Opera Theater, in 1933-36 – Odessa Opera Theater, 1936-43 – Kiev Opera Theater.
Had a beautiful and very musical voice of wide diapason, even in all registers, a very expressive artistic performance on stage.
Sang with the most famous Ukrainian soloists, like the legendary Oksana Petrusenko, and was one of the idols of the Ukrainian opera lovers.
Was one of the few carefully selected Ukrainian artists to go to Moscow for the “Celebration of the Ukranian Art” jubilee, where he was received with great enthusiasm.
Among his roles: Cavaradossi, Andriy (“Zaporozhez za Dunaem” by Gulak-Artemovsky), Petro, Andriy (“Natalka Poltavka”, “Taras Bulba” by Lysenko), Andriy (“Mazeppa” by Tchaikovsky), Davydov (“Podnyataya Zelina” by Dzerzhinskiy), Pavlo (“Perekop” by Rybalchenko, Meytus, Tiz), Enik (“The Bartered Bride” by Smetana).
In the beginning of the World War II he stayed at the German occupied territory, and continued to sing at the Kiev Opera Theater along with his wife, also a soloist of the Kiev Opera Theater – Sofia Yudina, even forced to sing in German. But he decided to leave the theater and went to Germany, and then to Italy. When he was there, he met with the professor Evgeniy Onatskiy, who was one of the most prominent figures of the Ukrainian community in Italy. When being there Shvedov gave a single concert, together with the other artists that escaped with him, and it had amazed Evgeniy Onatskiy to such a level that he begged him to go to trials in Rome’s Opera Theater. But Shvedov completely rejected that idea.
In 1950 Shvedov and his wife went to Argentina, where they gave some concerts from time to time, but this great singer never again enjoyed an operatic career.
Because of what happened during the World War II, the name and the recordings of Shvedov were completely erased from all Soviet books and archives.
Died on 28 of July 1959.
 

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