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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Niyaz Dautov (1913)





Born on 23rd of September in Kazan. Lyrical tenor, producer. People’s artist of the Russian Federative Socialistic Republic (1957).
In 1938 graduated from Tatarian Opera Studio of the Moscow conservatory, in 1939-43 learnt in Moscow conservatory (class of M.M.Mirzoeva and A.K.Askochensky), in 1953 graduated from Ural region conservatory.
His first part was Lensky on the stage of Moscow Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater.
Took part in a famous movie “Silva” as Edwin.
In 1943-56 – soloist, in 1960-64 soloist and producer of Sverdlov Theater of Opera and Ballet, in 1956069 soloist and chief producer of the Tatarian Opera and Ballet Theater in Kazan and head of faculty of operatic training of the Kazan conservatory. From 1965 – chief producer of Chelyabinsk Theater of Opera and Ballet.
In 1975-86 – chief of the Faculty of Opera of Kazan conservatory (from 1982 – professor).
In 1958 received the G.Tukay Republican Premium.
It is believed that during his life he took part in about 2000 performances, and as a producer was responsible for more than 80 stagings.
Died tragically on 16th of April 1986.