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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Nikandr Khanaev (1890)






Dramatic tenor. Born on May 27th in the village of Pesochnya, Ryazan province. People's artist of the USSR (1951). Received Stalin's Premium three times (1943, 1949, 1950).
Sang in a church choir as a child.
From 1921 to 1924 studied in Moscow conservatory with L.G.Zvyagina, starting his studies only at the age of 31, already being a family man.
In 1945 started working in the Bolshoi Opera Theater. In 1926-1954 - soloist of the Bolshoi Opera Theater.
Among his roles: German, Sadko, Sobinin, Tucha, Shuyskiy, Othello, Jose, Grigoriy Melehov, Avessalom, Duke, Radames, Imposter-Prince, Cavaradossi, Walter.
Had a very powerful yet flexible voice, resonant and with an extremely wide diapason. He masterfully controlled it and could sing in the hardest roles even at the age of 60.
Also gave concerts.
In 1948-50 taught in Moscow conservatory.