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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Vladimir Ivanovsky (1912)






Born on the 8th of June in the city of Kursk. People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialistic Republic (1959).
After finishing middle school took electrician’s courses, and after finishing them started working as a cinematography mechanic in the Club of Railroad Workers, where he participated in amateur musical performances. A pianist that worked in this club noticed the musical talent of the 16 year old Ivanovsky and told him about it.
After some time working at the Railroad Workers Club Ivanovsky moves to Moscow. There he works as a cinematography mechanic and a light mechanic, often singing to his friends, performing whatever melodies he could remember.
It so happened that Ivanovsky got acquainted with the family members of the professor of Moscow conservatory N.Laduhin, which arranged a meeting between him and the famous composer M.Ippolitov-Ivanov. In this same time Ivanovsky participated in all-USSR amateurs’ competition, received a premium, and was sent to study to the A.K.Glazunov Musical College in the class of the professor D.Belyavskaya.
In 1940 he graduated from the A.K.Glazunov Musical College and was accepted to the St-Petersburg Kirov Opera Theater.
In 1941, with the beginning of the war, he was sent to the Baltic Fleet Ensemble, with which he gave over one thousand concerts for soldiers defending the besieged St-Petersburg.
After the return of the staff of St-Petersburg Kirov Theater to the city, he joined it again, succeeding in creating a cycle of great performances - from Jose in "Carmen" to Pavka in Kabalevski's "Taras' Family". For his success in this particular role he was given the Stalin Premium (1951).
In 1952 Ivanovsky was invited to the Bolshoi Theater, where one of his biggest successes was the role of Herman in "The Queen of Spades", which he sang over 200 times.
Ivanovsky gave concerts all over USSR and abroad, playing the role of the Imposter Prince in "Boris Godunov" during the Bolshoi Theater concert tour in Milan's La-Scala.
Among his roles: Canio, Don Carlos, Duke, Pinkerton, Sadko, Raoul, Sinodal, Guidon (“Tale of the Tzar Saltan”, N.Rimsky-Korsakov), Andrey Khovanskiy and Golicyn (“Khovanshchina”, M.Mussorgsky), Jontek (“The Bartered Bride”, B.Smetana), Andrey, Lykov (“Tsar’s Bride”, N.Rimsky-Korsakov).
Toured Czechoslovakia, Korea, Finland, Romania, Italia, East-Germany, Canada, Poland, Hungary, Japan, Australia.
When his singing career was over, he did not leave the theater - from 1969 to 1974 he was the head of the Opera troupe of the Theater, and from 1975 to 2002 – chief organizer of the Theater’s concert tours.
Died on 26th of March 2004 in Moscow.