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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Arnold Azrikan (1906)







Born on February 23rd in Odessa. Dramatic Tenor. Acclaimed Artist of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940).
Began to sing at the age of twelve in a church chorus in Odessa. First studied in Moscow Gnesin State Musical-Pedagogical Institute, and then between 1926-1929 - at the Odessa Conservatory, where he was coached by the singers Menner-Kanevskaya and Julia Reider. Later, in Kharkov, he would perfect his mastery of voice with Carlo Barrero, the renowned Italian tenor and teacher. He began first as a chorister at the Odessa Opera theater in 1926, and in 1928 he made his debut there as Nathanael in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann.
In 1930 he was invited to the opera theater in Kharkov where he sang in the Ukrainian, Russian and Italian repertoires. In 1934 both the capital and the opera theatre's best soloists, including Azrikan, moved to Kiev.
In 1939 Azrikan first sang the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Othello which later became his signature role. Azrikan was the leading tenor at the Kiev Opera Theatre until 1943. The same year he joined the Sverdlovsk Opera Theatre where he achieved his greatest recognition as a dramatic tenor in Othello. For this performance he was given the Stalin Award in 1946. He remained with this theatre until 1951. Later, he toured extensively all over the Soviet Union while having long time engagements with the Odessa Opera Theater and the Baku Opera Theater. He retired from stage in 1964 during his engagement with the Moldova Opera Theater but returned to the same theater for his farewell performance in Othello in 1968.
It is often said he was destined to become a soloist in the Bolshoi, but the management hinted him that it can’t have two leading Jewish tenors in the Theater, one already being Solomon Hromchenko.
He had performed alongside such great singers as Irina Arkhipova, Maria Maksakova, Pavel Lisitsian, Irina Maslennikova, Nikolay Pechkovskiy, Nataliya Shpiller, Ivan Patorzhinskiy, Zoya Gayday, Maria Litvinenko-Volgemut, Mihail Grishko.
Among his roles: Vladimir Igorevich, Sadko, Hermann, Faust, Rhadames, Othello, Canio, Cavaradossi, Jose, Pinkerton, De Grie, Vakula (“Cherevichki”).
In 1943 he sang the part of the opera singer in the famous Soviet movie “Vozdushniy Izvozchik” (“The Air Cabby”).
In addition to his singing Azrikan also appeared as a stage director of several opera productions where he sang the leading parts. In 1956 in Baku Opera Theater he staged the first ever “Manon Lescaut” in Soviet Union.
Tragically, the only recordings that are left of Azrikan are two Ukranian folk songs and the recordings he made for the movie “Vozdushniy Izvozchik”.
Worked at the Kishinev conservatory after his retirement from stage. Among his students were the tenor Vladimir Zalikovskiy, the baritone Ivan Kvasniuk, the basso Ioan Paulenku, the soprano Lyudmila Chernobrivetz.
 

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