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 Kravtsov (1926)






Born July 29th in Kamensk. Acclaimed Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1964).
Fought in World War II from 1944. Was a gunner. Took part in the breaking through the German defenses on Visla river, in liberation of the towns of Sukhachev, Skernevice, Lovitch, Bydgosh, in fighting in Pomerania, in the crossing of the Oder river and in the battle for Berlin. Was gravely wounded. Received combat awards and medals.
In 1947 started working as a chorist in the Opera Theater in Baku. At the same time studied in a musical college and Baku conservatory.
In 1955 started performing in Stanislavski and Nemerovich-Danchenko Moscow Musical Theater and went to study in Moscow conservatory, successfully finishing his studies.
In 1958-80 - soloist of the St-Petersburg Kirov Opera Theater.
Numerous times appeared on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater and went to trips abroad.
Among his roles: Duke, Werther, Lohengrin, Yurodiviy, Almaviva, Faust, Lensky, Lykov, Alexei ("Optimisticheskaya Tragediya").
Kravtsov’s singing, according to critics, shined with bright lyricism, soulfulness, clarity. He possessed a remarkable artistic charm and temperament, romantic sensuality and liveliness.