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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Konstantin Ognevoy (1926)





Born on September 30th in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. People's Artist of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1972).
Studied violin in a musical school. When World War II began he added a year to his age to be sent to the front lines, but did not get to fight - his commanders heard his singing and sent him to a military ensemble, where he was performing before front-line troops all during the war. After that he was accepted to the ensemble of Minsk Military District.
After the war worked at Dnepropetrovsk Philharmonic.
Was accepted to Moscow conservatory by the famous conductor Alexander Sveshnikov.
After graduating from the conservatory in 1955, he made his debut at the Kiev Opera Theater where he would work for more than 20 years.
In 1973 he became the soloist of the Kiev Philharmonic.
Among his roles: Alfred, Duke, Lensky, Almaviva, Faust, Tamino.
His chamber repertoire included pieces by Schubert, Schumann, Grieg, Rachmaninov, Russian romances, Ukranian folk songs.
Became one of the favorite singers to perform the new popular songs written by Soviet composers.
It is often claimed he had possessed one of the most beautiful lyrical voices of his generation.
From 1965 to his last days had taught in the Kiev Conservatory. Many of his students turned famous operatic singers.
Died on December 15th 1999.
 

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