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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Alibek Dnishev (1951)






Born on July 30th in Alma-Ata (Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan). Lyrical tenor. People’s artist of the USSR (1986).
Came from an upper class family. His father was a war correspondent during World World II, and after the war founded a magazine which delt with cultural issues, being its chief editor for years. For some time he was the deputy Minister of Culture of the Kazakh Soviet Republic. His mother was the sister of the famous Kazakh opera singers Rishat and Muslim Abdullin. Alibek grew in a house where music was always an important part of life.
Studied in Alma-Ata Chaikovsky Music College, in 1976 graduated from the Alma-Ata conservatory (class of N.D.Sharipova).
In 1976-1978 – was a soloist of the Kazakh Philharmonic, from 1978 – the Kazakh Theater of Opera and Ballet.
Performed his chamber routines at the most famous European venues, took part in the stagings of the Bolshoi Theater.
Also performed lighter repertoire, sang kazakh folk songs, and cooperated with Soviet mass-song composers.
His style of singing was characterized with delicateness, lyricism and melodiousness.
Laureate of the All-USSR Glinka vocalist Competition (1-st prize, 1975), the International Schumann Competition (2-nd prize, 1977), the International Vocalists Villa Lobos Competition (5-th prize).
Was awarded with the premium of the Soviet Young Communist League (1979).