Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (Russian:Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин,romanized:Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin,IPA:[ˈfʲɵdərɨˈvanəvʲɪtɕʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn]; 13 February [O.S. 1 February] 1873 – 12 April 1938) was a Russianopera singer. Possessing adeep and expressivebass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition ofnaturalistic acting in his chosen art form.[1]
During the first phase of his career, Chaliapin endured direct competition from three other great basses: the powerfulLev Sibiriakov [ru;uk;pl;ca] (1869–1942), the more lyricalVladimir Kastorsky (1871–1948), and Dmitri Buchtoyarov (1866–1918), whose voice was intermediate between those of Sibiriakov and Kastorsky. The fact that Chaliapin is far and away the best remembered of this magnificent quartet of rival basses is a testament to the power of his personality, the acuteness of his musical interpretations, and the vividness of his performances.
He himself spelled his surname, French-style,Chaliapine in the West,[2] and his name even appeared on earlyHis Master's Voice 78s asTheodore Chaliapine.[3] In English texts, his given name is most usually rendered asFeodor orFyodor, and his surname is most usually seen asChaliapin. However, in the Russian pronunciation the initial consonantШ is pronounced likesh inshop, not asch inchop, and in reference books the surname is sometimes given a strictromanization asShalyapin. This spelling also better reflects the fact that the name is pronounced with three syllables (Sha-LYA-pin), not four.
Feodor Chaliapin was born into a peasant family on 1 February (OS), 1873 inKazan, in the wing of merchant Lisitzin's house on Rybnoryadskaya Street (nowPushkin Street) 10. This wing no longer exists, but the house with the yard where the wing was situated is still there. The next day,Candlemas (The Meeting of Our Lord), he was baptized inEpiphany (Bogoyavlenskaya) Church on Bolshaya Prolomnaya street (nowBauman Street). His godparents were his neighbors: the shoemaker Nikolay Tonkov and Ludmila Kharitonova, a 12-year-old girl. The dwelling was expensive for his father, Ivan Yakovlevich, who served as a clerk in the Zemskaya Uprava (Zemstvo District Council), and in 1878 the Chaliapin family moved to the village of Ametyevo (also Ometyevo, or the Ometyev settlements, now a settlement within Kazan) behind the area of Sukonnaya Sloboda, and settled in a small house.
At Mamontov Chaliapin metSergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), who was serving as an assistant conductor there and with whom he remained friends for life. Rachmaninoff taught him much about musicianship, including how to analyze a music score, and insisted that Chaliapin learn not only his own roles but also all the other roles in the operas in which he was scheduled to appear. With Rachmaninoff he learned the title role ofMussorgsky'sBoris Godunov, which became his signature character.[4] Chaliapin returned the favor by showing Rachmaninoff how he built each of his interpretations around a culminating moment or "point". Regardless of where that point was or at which dynamic within that piece, the performer had to know how to approach it with absolute calculation and precision; otherwise, the whole construction of the piece could crumble and the piece could become disjointed. Rachmaninoff put this approach to considerable use when he became a full-time concert-pianist afterWorld War I.[5]
On the strength of his Mamontov appearances, theBolshoi Theatre in Moscow engaged Chaliapin, and he appeared there regularly from 1899 until 1914. During the First World War of 1914-1918 Chaliapin also appeared regularly at theZimin Private Opera in Moscow. In addition, from 1901, Chaliapin began touring in the West, making a sensational debut atLa Scala that year as the devil in a production ofBoito'sMefistofele, under the baton of one of the 20th century's most dynamic opera conductors,Arturo Toscanini. At the end of his career, Toscanini observed that the Russian bass was the greatest operatic talent with whom he had ever worked. The singer'sMetropolitan Opera debut in the 1907 season was disappointing due to the unprecedented frankness of his stage acting; but he returned to the Met in 1921 and sang there with immense success for eight seasons, New York's audiences having grown more broad-minded since 1907. In 1913 Chaliapin was introduced to London and Paris by the brilliant entrepreneurSergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), at which point he began giving well-received solo recitals in which he sang traditional Russian folk-songs as well as more serious fare. Such folk songs included "Along Peterskaya" (which he recorded with a British-based Russian folk-instrument orchestra) and the song which he made famous throughout the world: "The Song of the Volga Boatmen". In 1925, when he performed in New York, his piano accompanist was a youngHarry Lubin (1906-1977), later to become a composer of music for the television seriesThe Outer Limits.[6]
Feodor Chaliapin in his dressing room, drawing byManuel Rosenberg 1924
Chaliapin creating his self-portrait in 1912Chaliapin and Tornaghi
Chaliapin toured Australia in 1926, giving a series of recitals which were highly acclaimed. Privately, Chaliapin's personal affairs were in a state of disarray as a consequence of theRussian Revolution of 1917. At first he was treated as a revered artist of the newly emergedSoviet Russia. However, the harsh realities of everyday life under the new regime, and the unstable climate which followed because of the ensuingCivil War, combined with, reportedly, the encroachment on some of his property by theCommunist authorities,[7] caused him to remain perpetually outside Russia after 1921. Chaliapin initially moved toFinland and later lived inFrance. Cosmopolitan Paris, with its significant Russian émigré population, became his base, and ultimately, the city of his death. He was renowned for his larger-than-life carousing during this period, but he never sacrificed his dedication to his art.
Chaliapin made one sound film for the directorG. W. Pabst, the 1933Don Quixote. The film was made in three different versions – French, English, and German, as was sometimes the prevailing custom. Chaliapin starred in all three versions, each of which used the same script, sets, and costumes, but different supporting casts. The English and the French versions are the most often seen, and both were released in May 2006 on a DVD. Pabst's film was not a version of the Massenet opera but a dramatic adaptation ofMiguel de Cervantes' novel, with music and songs byJacques Ibert.
In 1932, Chaliapin published a memoir,Man and Mask: Forty Years in the Life of a Singer. While touring Japan in 1936 he was suffering from a toothache, and a hotel chef devised a way to cook a steak to be extra tender for him. This dish is known in Japan as aChaliapin steak [ja] to this day.[8]
Chaliapin was married twice. He met his first wife, Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi (1873–1965), in Nizhny Novgorod. They married in Russia in 1898 and had six children: Igor,Boris (1904–1979), Irina, Lidia and twinsFeodor Jr. (1905–1992) and Taniya. Igor died aged four. Feodor Jr. was a character actor featured in Western motion pictures includingMoonstruck andThe Name of the Rose oppositeSean Connery.[10] Boris was a well-known graphical artist, who painted the portraits used on 414 covers of theTime magazine between 1942 and 1970.[11]
While married to Tornaghi, Chaliapin lived with Marina Petsold (1882–1964), a widow who already had two children from her first marriage. She had three daughters with Chaliapin: Marfa (1910–2003),Marina [ru] (1912–2009),[12] and Dasya (1921–1977). Chaliapin's two families lived separately, one in Moscow and the other in Saint Petersburg, and did not interact. Chaliapin married Petsold in 1927 in Paris.[13][14]
Chaliapin had his portrait painted a number of times by the Russian artistKonstantin Korovin. They had been introduced to each other in 1896 and became close friends.[15]
Chaliapin's autobiographical collaboration withMaxim Gorky occurred in 1917. He had already begun writing his autobiography long before, in theCrimea. In 1917, while he was in the south of France, he was urged to write such a work by a French journalist who hoped to ghost-write it. Gorky, who was his intimate friend and was then living inCapri, persuaded Chaliapin to stay with him there and with the help of a secretary a great deal of information was taken down which Gorky fashioned into a long manuscript, published in Russia in 1917 as a series of articles in the journalLetopis. Meanwhile, Chaliapin attempted to sell it to an American publisher, who refused it on learning that it had been published in Russian. There was a rift with Gorky, and Chaliapin worked with another editor to produce a 'new' version of his original text. The new book, published in America asPages of My Life (Harper and Brothers, New York 1927), took the story only up to 1905, and lacked the depth, style and life of Gorky's version. Then, in 1932, Chaliapin publishedMan and Mask (Alfred A. Knopf, New York) to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of his first stage appearance. The original manuscript of the Gorky version was first translated and published in English in 1967, by Nina Froud and James Hanley, asChaliapin: An autobiography as told to Maxim Gorky (Stein and Day, New York), and included an appendix of original correspondence including a section relating to Gorky.[21]
Chaliapin possessed a high-lying bass voice with an unmistakable timbre which recorded clearly. He cut a prolific number of discs for theGramophone Company, beginning in Russia with acoustical recordings made at the dawn of the 20th Century, and continuing through the early electrical (microphone) era. Some of his performances at theRoyal Opera House,Covent Garden, in London were recorded live in the 1920s, including a haunting version of the "Death of Boris" fromBoris Godunov. His last disc, made in Tokyo in 1936, was of the famousThe Song of the Volga Boatmen. Many of his recordings were issued in the United States byRCA Victor. His legacy of recordings is available on CDs issued byEMI, Preiser,Naxos and other commercial labels. In 2018 his complete recordings were issued on 13 CDs byMarston Records. They consist of songs as well as a range of arias from Italian, French and, Russian opera.
Opera commentator/historian Michael Scott avers that: "Chaliapin ranks withCaruso andMaria Callas as one of the three greatest singers and most potent and influential artists of the twentieth century."[22]
"At the Met he sang the role of Basilio in Rossini'sThe Barber of Seville as a vulgar, unctuous, greasy priest, constantly picking his nose and wiping his fingers onto his cassock. Audiences were appalled. Defending himself, Chaliapin said in an interview that Basilio 'is a Spanish priest. It is a type I know well. He is not the modern American priest, clean and well-groomed; he is dirty and unkempt, he is a beast, and this is what I make him, a comic beast.' " (Harold C. Schonberg)[23]
Some accused Chaliapin of brawling backstage. Rachmaninoff agreed. "Feodoris a brawler. They are all scared of his very spirit. He shouts suddenly or even hits someone! And Feodor's fist is powerful ... He can take care of himself. And how else should one behave? Backstage at our own theater it's just like a saloon. They shout, they drink, they swear in the foulest language."[4] In a letter from November 1910 to the editor of Utro Rossii, the publication which supposedly quoted the above remarks and which attributes them to Rachmaninoff, the composer categorically denies the quotation and wrote "The article publishes without my knowledge words of mine about the Bolshoi Theater and Chaliapin...I said that we often have regrettable confusion backstage at the Bolshoi Theater...I also said that I had heard rumors that since Chaliapin had been appointed régisseur of those operas in which he sings, there is more quiet backstage. That is all I said... S. Rachmaninoff".[24]
Met divaGeraldine Farrar said Chaliapin had a voice like "melodious thunder" but warned of his unannounced antics to hog the limelight onstage. "Chaliapin was a wonderful opera partner, but one had to be watchful for sudden departures from the rehearsal plan, and the touches of originality favorable only for the aggrandizement of Chaliapin."[25]
Dale Carnegie, referencing a story by impresarioSol Hurok, says that Chaliapin was often temperamental, even acting like a “spoiled child.” On hearing the concert basso's complaint that his throat was raw and that he would not be able to sing at a scheduled performance at theMetropolitan Opera, Hurok agreed immediately to cancel the engagement, commenting: “It will only cost you a couple of thousand dollars, but that is nothing in comparison to your reputation.” Chaliapin left open the possibility that he might nevertheless perform if he felt better later, and Hurok dutifully checked on him twice before the concert time. Finally he agreed to perform, provided that Hurok would announce to the audience that Chaliapin “had a very bad cold and was not in good voice.” Carnegie comments approvingly: “Mr. Hurok would lie and say he would do it, for he knew that was the only way to get the basso out on the stage.”[26]
^Bertensson & Leyda,Rachmaninoff: a Lifetime in Music, p. 171.(Indiana University Press, 2001 by permission of New York University Press which had originally published the work in 1956)
![The belltower of the Epiphany (Bogoyavlenskaya) Church in Kazan. The Chaliapin Chamber Hall is located on the second floor of the belltower.[16]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3a%25D0%259A%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BB%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BA%25D0%25BE%25D0%25BB%25D1%258C%25D0%25BD%25D1%258F_%25D0%2591%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B3%25D0%25BE%25D1%258F%25D0%25B2%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BD%25D1%2581%25D0%25BA%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B9_%25D1%2586%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25BA%25D0%25B2%25D0%25B8_%25D0%25B2_%25D0%259A%25D0%25B0%25D0%25B7%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8.jpg)
