Chaliapin opera singer. Fyodor Chaliapin - great Russian singer

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin is a great Russian chamber and opera singer who brilliantly combined unique vocal abilities with acting skills. He performed roles in high bass and as a soloist at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera. He directed the Mariinsky Theater, acted in films, and became the first People's Artist of the Republic.

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was born (1) February 13, 1873 in Kazan, in the family of the peasant Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin, a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Chaliapins. The singer's father, Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin, was a peasant originally from the Vyatka province. Mother, Evdokia Mikhailovna (maiden name Prozorova), was also a peasant from the Kumenskaya volost, where the village of Dudintsy was located at that time. In the village of Vozhgaly, in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Ivan and Evdokia got married at the very beginning of 1863. And only 10 years later their son Fyodor was born; later a boy and a girl appeared in the family.

Fyodor worked as a shoemaker's apprentice, a turner, and a copyist. At the same time he sang in the bishop's choir. From his youth he was interested in theater. From an early age, it became clear that the child had excellent hearing and voice; he often sang along with his mother in a beautiful treble.

The Chaliapins' neighbor, church regent Shcherbinin, hearing the boy's singing, brought him with him to the Church of St. Barbara, and they sang the all-night vigil and mass together. After this, at the age of nine, the boy began singing in the suburban church choir, as well as at village holidays, weddings, prayer services and funerals. For the first three months, Fedya sang for free, and then he was entitled to a salary of 1.5 rubles.

In 1890, Fedor became a chorister of the opera troupe in Ufa, and from 1891 he traveled around the cities of Russia with the Ukrainian operetta troupe. In 1892-1893 he studied with the opera singer D.A. Usatov in Tbilisi, where he began his professional stage activities. During the 1893-1894 season, Chaliapin performed the roles of Mephistopheles (Gounod's Faust), Melnik (Dargomyzhsky's The Mermaid) and many others.

In 1895 he was accepted into the troupe of the Mariinsky Theater and sang several roles.

In 1896, at the invitation of Mamontov, he entered the Moscow Private Russian Opera, where his talent was revealed. Of particular importance for Chaliapin were his studies and subsequent creative friendship with Rachmaninoff.

Over the years of work at the theater, Chaliapin performed almost all the main roles of his repertoire: Susanin (“Ivan Susanin” by Glinka), Melnik (“Rusalka” by Dargomyzhsky), Boris Godunov, Varlaam and Dosifey (“Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina” by Mussorgsky), Ivan Grozny and Salieri (“The Woman of Pskov” and “Mozart and Salieri” by Rimsky-Korsakov), Holofernes (“Judith” by Serov), Nilakanta (“Lakmé” by Delibes), etc.

Chaliapin had great success during the tour of the Moscow Private Russian Opera in St. Petersburg in 1898. Since 1899, he sang at the Bolshoi and at the same time at the Mariinsky theater, as well as in provincial cities.

In 1901 he performed triumphantly in Italy (at the La Scala theater), after which his constant tours abroad began, which brought the singer world fame. Of particular importance was Chaliapin's participation in the Russian Seasons (1907-1909, 1913, Paris), as a promoter of Russian art and, above all, the work of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Fyodor Ivanovich had a special friendship with Maxim Gorky.

The first wife of Fyodor Chaliapin was Iola Tornagi (1874 - 1965?). He, tall and bass-voiced, she, thin and small ballerina. He didn’t know a word of Italian, she didn’t understand Russian at all.

The young Italian ballerina was a real star in her homeland; already at the age of 18, Iola became the prima of the Venetian theater. Then came Milan and French Lyon. And then her troupe was invited to tour to Russia by Savva Mamontov. This is where Iola and Fyodor met. He liked her immediately, and the young man began to show all sorts of attention. The girl, on the contrary, remained cold towards Chaliapin for a long time.

One day during a tour, Iola fell ill, and Fyodor came to see her with a pot of chicken broth. Gradually they began to get closer, an affair began, and in 1898 the couple got married in a small village church.

The wedding was modest, and a year later the first-born Igor appeared. Iola left the stage for the sake of her family, and Chaliapin began to tour even more in order to earn a decent living for his wife and child. Soon two girls were born into the family, but in 1903 grief occurred - the first-born Igor died of appendicitis. Fyodor Ivanovich could hardly survive this grief; they say that he even wanted to commit suicide.

In 1904, his wife gave Chaliapin another son, Borenko, and the following year they had twins, Tanya and Fedya.

Iola Tornaghi, the first wife of Fyodor Chaliapin, surrounded by children - Irina, Boris, Lydia, Fyodor and Tatiana. Reproduction. Photo: RIA Novosti / K. Kartashyan

But the friendly family and happy fairy tale collapsed in one moment. In St. Petersburg, Chaliapin found a new love. Moreover, Maria Petzold (1882-1964) was not just a lover, she became the second wife and mother of Fyodor Ivanovich’s three daughters: Marfa (1910-2003), Marina (1912-2009, Miss Russia 1931, actress) and Dasia (1921 —1977). The singer was torn between Moscow and St. Petersburg, and tours, and two families, he flatly refused to leave his beloved Tornaghi and five children.

When Iola found out everything, she hid the truth from the children for a long time.

Konstantin Makovsky - Portrait of Iola Tornaghi

After the victory of the October Revolution of 1917, Chaliapin was appointed artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater, but in 1922, having gone abroad on tour, he did not return to the Soviet Union and remained to live in Paris. Chaliapin emigrated from the country with his second wife Maria Petzold and daughters. Only in 1927 in Prague did they officially register their marriage.

The Italian Iola Tornaghi remained in Moscow with her children and survived both the revolution and the war here. She returned to her homeland in Italy only a few years before her death, taking with her from Russia only a photo album with portraits of Chaliapin. Iola Tornaghi lived to be 91 years old.

Of all Chaliapin’s children, Marina was the last to die in 2009 (daughter of Fyodor Ivanovich and Maria Petzold).

Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich. Portrait Portrait of M.V. Chalyapina. 1919

(Portrait of Maria Valentinovna Petzold)

In 1927, Chaliapin was deprived of USSR citizenship and his title was taken away. At the end of the summer of 1932, the actor starred in films, playing the main role in Georg Pabst's film "The Adventures of Don Quixote" based on the novel of the same name by Cervantes. The film was shot in two languages ​​at once - English and French, with two casts. In 1991, Fyodor Chaliapin was restored to his rank.

Profound interpreter of romances M.I. Glinka, A.S. Dargomyzhsky, M.P. Mussorgsky, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, P.I. Tchaikovsky, A.G. Rubinstein, Schumann, Schubert - he was also a soulful performer of Russian folk songs.

Chaliapin's multifaceted artistic talent was manifested in his talented sculptural, painting, and graphic works. He also had a literary gift.

K. A. Korovin. Portrait of Chaliapin. Oil. 1911

Drawings and portraits of Fyodor Chaliapin can be viewed

• Married to

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (b. 1873 - d. 1938) - great Russian opera singer (bass).

Fyodor Chaliapin was born on February 1 (13), 1873 in Kazan. The son of the peasant of the Vyatka province Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin (1837-1901), a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Shalyapins (Shelepins). As a child, Chaliapin was a singer. Received an elementary education.

Chaliapin himself considered the beginning of his artistic career to be 1889, when he joined the drama troupe of V. B. Serebryakov. Initially, as a statistician.

On March 29, 1890, Chaliapin's first solo performance took place - the role of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin", staged by the Kazan Society of Performing Art Lovers. Throughout May and the beginning of June 1890, Chaliapin was a chorus member of V. B. Serebryakov’s operetta company.

In September 1890, Chaliapin arrived from Kazan to Ufa and began working in the chorus of an operetta troupe under the direction of S. Ya. Semenov-Samarsky.

Quite by accident, I had to transform from a chorister into a soloist, replacing a sick artist in Moniuszko’s opera “Pebble.” This debut brought out the 17-year-old Chaliapin, who was occasionally assigned small opera roles, for example Fernando in Il Trovatore. The following year, Chaliapin performed as the Unknown in Verstovsky's Askold's Grave. He was offered a place in the Ufa zemstvo, but the Little Russian troupe of Dergach came to Ufa, and Chaliapin joined it. Traveling with her led him to Tiflis, where for the first time he managed to seriously practice his voice, thanks to the singer D. A. Usatov. Usatov not only approved of Chaliapin’s voice, but, due to the latter’s lack of financial resources, began giving him singing lessons for free and generally took a great part in it. He also arranged for Chaliapin to join the Tiflis opera of Forcatti and Lyubimov. Chaliapin lived in Tiflis for a whole year, performing the first bass parts in the opera.

In 1893 he moved to Moscow, and in 1894 to St. Petersburg, where he sang in Arcadia in Lentovsky's opera troupe, and in the winter of 1894/5 - in an opera company at the Panaevsky Theater, in Zazulin's troupe. The beautiful voice of the aspiring artist and especially his expressive musical recitation in connection with his truthful acting attracted the attention of critics and the public to him. In 1895, Chaliapin was accepted by the directorate of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters into the opera troupe: he entered the stage of the Mariinsky Theater and sang with success the roles of Mephistopheles (Faust) and Ruslan (Ruslan and Lyudmila). Chaliapin’s varied talent was also expressed in the comic opera “The Secret Marriage” by D. Cimaroz, but still did not receive due appreciation. It is reported that during the 1895-1896 season. he “appeared quite rarely and, moreover, in parties that were not very suitable for him.” The famous philanthropist S.I. Mamontov, who at that time owned an opera house in Moscow, was the first to notice Chaliapin’s extraordinary talent and persuaded him to join his private troupe. Here in 1896-1899. Chaliapin developed artistically and developed his stage talent, performing in a number of roles. Thanks to his subtle understanding of Russian music in general and modern music in particular, he completely individually, but at the same time deeply truthfully created a whole series of types in Russian operas. At the same time, he worked hard on roles in foreign operas; for example, the role of Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust in his broadcast received amazingly bright, strong and original coverage. Over the years, Chaliapin gained great fame.

Since 1899, he again served in the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow (Bolshoi Theater), where he enjoyed enormous success. He was highly appreciated in Milan, where he performed at the La Scala theater in the title role of Mephistopheles A. Boito (1901, 10 performances). Chaliapin's tours in St. Petersburg on the Mariinsky stage constituted a kind of event in the St. Petersburg musical world.

During the revolution of 1905, he joined progressive circles and donated proceeds from his speeches to revolutionaries. His performances with folk songs (“Dubinushka” and others) sometimes turned into political demonstrations.

Since 1914 he has performed in the private opera companies of S. I. Zimin (Moscow) and A. R. Aksarin (Petrograd).

Since 1918 - artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. Received the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

Chaliapin's long absence aroused suspicion and negative attitude in Soviet Russia; Thus, in 1926, Mayakovsky wrote in his “Letter to Gorky”: “Or should you live, / as Chaliapin lives, / with scented applause / daubed? / Come back / now / such an artist / back / to Russian rubles - / I will be the first to shout: / - Roll back, / People’s Artist of the Republic!” In 1927, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from one of his concerts to the children of emigrants, which was interpreted and presented as support for the White Guards. In 1928, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, he was deprived of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to the USSR; this was justified by the fact that he did not want to “return to Russia and serve the people whose title of artist was awarded to him” or, according to other sources, by the fact that he allegedly donated money to monarchist emigrants.

In the spring of 1937, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and on April 12, 1938, he died in the arms of his wife. He was buried in the Batignolles cemetery in Paris.

On October 29, 1984, a ceremony for the reburial of the ashes of F.I. Chaliapin took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

On October 31, 1986, the opening of the tombstone of the great Russian singer F. I. Chaliapin (sculptor A. Eletsky, architect Yu. Voskresensky) took place.

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin. Born on February 1 (13), 1873 in Kazan - died on April 12, 1938 in Paris. Russian opera and chamber singer (high bass).

Soloist of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters, as well as the Metropolitan Opera Theater, first People's Artist of the Republic (1918-1927, title returned in 1991), in 1918-1921 - artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater. He has a reputation as an artist who has combined in his work “innate musicality, bright vocal abilities, and extraordinary acting skills.” He was also engaged in painting, graphics and sculpture, and acted in films. He had a great influence on world opera.

The son of the peasant of the Vyatka province Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin (1837-1901), a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Shalyapins (Shelepins). Chaliapin's mother is a peasant woman from the village of Dudintsy, Kumensky volost (Kumensky district, Kirov region), Evdokia Mikhailovna (nee Prozorova). Ivan Yakovlevich and Evdokia Mikhailovna got married on January 27, 1863 in the Transfiguration Church in the village of Vozhgaly.

As a child, Chaliapin was a singer. As a boy, he was sent to study shoemaking with shoemakers N.A. Tonkov, then V.A. Andreev. He received his primary education at Vedernikova's private school, then studied at the Fourth Parish School in Kazan, and later at the Sixth Primary School. In May 1885, Chaliapin graduated from college, receiving the highest score - 5.

In September 1885, his father hired Fyodor Chaliapin as a teacher at the newly opened vocational school in Arsk. “I thought,” Chaliapin recalled, “that I was going to some beautiful country, and I was quietly glad that I was leaving Sukonnaya Sloboda, where life was becoming increasingly difficult for me.”

Chaliapin himself considered the beginning of his artistic career to be 1889, when he joined the drama troupe of V. B. Serebryakov, initially as an extra.

On March 29, 1890, Chaliapin’s first performance took place - he performed the part of Zaretsky in the opera “Eugene Onegin” staged by the Kazan Society of Performing Art Lovers. Throughout May and early June 1890, Chaliapin was a chorus member of V. B. Serebryakov’s operetta company.

On September 19, 1890, Chaliapin arrives from Kazan to Ufa and begins working in the choir of an operetta troupe under the direction of S. Ya. Semenov-Samarsky.

He received the solo part of Stolnik in Moniuszko's opera "Pebble", replacing the artist who accidentally fell ill. This debut brought forward the 17-year-old Chaliapin, who was occasionally assigned small opera roles - for example, Ferrando in Il Trovatore. Once, performing as Stolnik, Chaliapin fell on stage, sitting past a chair - since then, all his life he vigilantly watched the chairs on stage, fearing to miss again.

The following year, Chaliapin performed as the Unknown in Verstovsky's Askold's Grave. He was offered a place in the Ufa zemstvo, but the aspiring singer joined the Little Russian troupe of G.I. Derkach that arrived in Ufa. Traveling with her led him to Tiflis, where he was able to take his voice seriously for the first time, thanks to the singer Dmitry Usatov.

Usatov not only approved of Chaliapin’s voice, but, due to the latter’s lack of financial resources, began giving him singing lessons for free and generally took a great part in it. He also arranged for Chaliapin to perform in the Tiflis opera of Ludwig-Forcatti and Lyubimov. Chaliapin lived in Tiflis for a whole year, performing the first bass parts in the opera.

In 1893 he moved to Moscow, and in 1894 to the capital, St. Petersburg, where he sang in Arcadia in Lentovsky's opera troupe, and in the winter of 1894-1895. - in the opera partnership at the Panaevsky Theater, in the Zazulin troupe.

In 1895, Chaliapin was accepted by the directorate of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters into the opera troupe: he entered the stage of the Mariinsky Theater and successfully sang the roles of Mephistopheles (Faust by C. Gounod) and Ruslan (Ruslan and Lyudmila by M. I. Glinka). Chaliapin’s varied talent was also expressed in D. Cimarosa’s comic opera “The Secret Marriage,” but has not yet received proper appreciation.

In the 1895-1896 season, he “appeared quite rarely and, moreover, in parties that were not suitable for him.”

The famous philanthropist S.I. Mamontov, who at that time owned an opera house in Moscow, noticing Chaliapin's outstanding talent, persuaded him to join his troupe. Chaliapin sang at the Mamontov Opera in 1896-1899, and over these four seasons gained great fame. Here he developed artistically and developed his stage talent, performing in a number of solo roles. Thanks to his subtle understanding of Russian music in general and modern music in particular, he individually and deeply truthfully created a number of significant images in such works of Russian composers as “The Woman of Pskov” (Ivan the Terrible), “Sadko” (The Varangian Guest) and “Mozart and Salieri” (Salieri ) N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov; “Mermaid” (Melnik) by A. S. Dargomyzhsky; “Life for the Tsar” (Ivan Susanin) by M. I. Glinka; “Boris Godunov” (Boris Godunov) and “Khovanshchina” (Dosifei) by M. P. Mussorgsky. At the same time, he also worked on roles in foreign operas; Thus, the role of Mephistopheles in C. Gounod’s opera “Faust” received bright, strong and original coverage in his broadcast.

In an autobiographical book "Mask and Soul" Chaliapin characterizes these years of creative life as the most important: “From Mamontov I received the repertoire that gave me the opportunity to develop all the main features of my artistic nature, my temperament.”

In 1899, Chaliapin again entered service in Imperial theaters- this time he sang in Moscow, at the Bolshoi Theater, where he enjoyed enormous success. Chaliapin's tour performances on the imperial Mariinsky stage constituted a kind of event in the St. Petersburg musical world.

In 1901, Chaliapin gave 10 performances at La Scala in Milan: his performance in the title role in A. Boito’s opera “Mephistopheles” was highly praised.

During the revolution of 1905, he donated proceeds from his performances to the workers. His performances with folk songs (“Dubinushka” and others) sometimes turned into political demonstrations.

Since 1914 he has performed in the private opera companies of S. I. Zimin (Moscow) and A. R. Aksarin (Petrograd).

In 1915, Chaliapin made his film debut, he played the role of Ivan the Terrible in the historical film drama “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible” (based on the drama “The Pskov Woman” by Lev Mei).

In 1917, during the production of G. Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos” at the Bolshoi Theater, Chaliapin performed not only as a singer, performing the part of Philip, but also as a director. His next directorial experience was the production of A. S. Dargomyzhsky’s opera “Rusalka”. He chooses the young singer K. G. Derzhinskaya for the main role.

Since 1918, Chaliapin has been the artistic director of the former Mariinsky Theater. In the same year, he was the first to receive the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

Since 1922, Chaliapin has been on tour abroad, in particular to the USA, where his American impresario was Solomon Yurok. The singer left with his second wife, Maria Valentinovna. His long absence aroused suspicion and negative attitude in Soviet Russia.

In 1927, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from one of the concerts to the children of emigrants, which was presented on May 31, 1927 in the VSERABIS magazine by a certain VSERABIS employee S. Simon as support for the White Guards. This story is told in detail in Chaliapin’s autobiography “Mask and Soul”. On August 24, 1927, by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, he was deprived of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to the USSR. This was justified by the fact that he did not want to “return to Russia and serve the people whose title of artist was awarded to him” or, according to other sources, by the fact that he allegedly donated money to monarchist emigrants.

“Proposals to posthumously restore the title of People's Artist of the Republic to F. I. Chaliapin” were considered by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Supreme Council of the RSFSR in 1956, but were not accepted. The 1927 resolution was repealed only 53 years after the singer’s death: on June 10, 1991, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR adopted Resolution No. 317, ordering the repeal of the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR of August 24, 1927 “On depriving F. I. Chaliapin of the title “People’s Artist”” as unreasonable.

At the end of the summer of 1932, Chaliapin starred in films, playing the main role in Georg Pabst’s film “The Adventures of Don Quixote” based on the novel of the same name by Cervantes. The film was shot in two languages ​​at once - English and French, with two casts. The music for the film was written by Jacques Ibert, and location shooting took place near the city of Nice.

In 1935-1936, Chaliapin, together with accompanist Georges de Godzinsky, went on his last tour to the Far East: he gave 57 concerts in Manchuria, China and Japan.

In the spring of 1937, Chaliapin was diagnosed with leukemia, and on April 12, 1938, he died in Paris in the arms of his wife. He was buried in the Batignolles cemetery in Paris.

In 1984, his son, Fyodor Fedorovich, authorized the transfer of the singer’s ashes from France to Russia. This was possible thanks to Baron Eduard Alexandrovich von Falz-Fein, who persuaded him to transfer the ashes to Russia. After the death of Fyodor Fedorovich, the baron bought the Chaliapin family heirlooms that remained in Rome and donated them to the Chaliapin Museum in St. Petersburg. The reburial ceremony took place at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow on October 29, 1984. Two years later, a tombstone by sculptor A. Yeletsky and architect Yu. Voskresensky was installed there.

Personal life of Chaliapin:

Chaliapin was married twice.

Chaliapin met his first wife, Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi (Le Presti), in Nizhny Novgorod. They got married in the church of the village of Gagino in 1898. In this marriage, Chaliapin had six children: Igor (died at the age of 4), Boris, twins Fyodor and Tatyana, Irina and Lydia.

Already having a family, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin became close to Maria Valentinovna Petzold (née Elukhen, 1882-1964), who already had two children from her first marriage. They have three daughters: Marfa (1910-2003), Marina (1912-2009) and Dasia (1921-1977). In fact, Chaliapin had a second family, although the first marriage was not dissolved and the second was not registered. One family lived in Moscow, the second in Petrograd, they did not intersect with each other. The marriage of Maria Valentinovna and Chaliapin was formalized in one of the Russian churches in Prague, during his solo tour, presumably on November 10, 1927.

Of all Chaliapin's children, Marina lived the longest, and died at the age of 98.

Opera and chamber singer
People's Artist of the Republic

Fyodor Chaliapin was born on February 13, 1873 in Kazan into the family of a peasant from the village of Syrtsovo, Vyatka province, Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin.

His mother Evdokia (Avdotya) Mikhailovna (nee Prozorova) was from the village of Dudinskaya, Vyatka province. Chaliapin's father served in the zemstvo government. Parents sent Fedya early to learn the craft of a shoemaker, and then a turner. Chaliapin also managed to get Fedya into the 6th city four-year school, from which he graduated with a diploma of commendation.

The characteristics that Chaliapin later gave to his father, Ivan Yakovlevich, and relatives are interesting: “My father was a strange man. Tall, with a sunken chest and a trimmed beard, he did not look like a peasant. His hair was soft and always well combed; I had never seen such a beautiful hairstyle on anyone else. It was pleasant for me to stroke his hair in the moments of our affectionate relationship. He wore a shirt sewn by his mother. Soft, with a turn-down collar and a ribbon instead of a tie... On top of the shirt there is a “jacket”, on the feet there are greased boots...”

Sometimes, in winter, bearded people in bast shoes and zipuns came to them; they smelled strongly of rye bread and something else special, some kind of Vyatka smell: it can be explained by the fact that the Vyatichi eat a lot of oatmeal. These were his father's relatives - his brother Dorimedont and his sons. They sent Fedka for vodka, drank tea for a long time, unpretentiously speaking in Vyatka patois about harvests, sweat, and how difficult it is to live in the village; Someone’s cattle was stolen for non-payment of taxes, a samovar was taken away...

Dorimedon Chaliapin had a powerful voice. Returning from arable land in the evening, he would shout: “Wife, put on the samovar, I’m going home!” - the whole neighborhood could hear it. And his son Mikhei, Fyodor Ivanovich’s cousin, also had a strong voice: he used to plow, and as soon as he began to scream or sing, he would hear everything from one end of the field to the other, and then through the forest to the village.

Over the years, his father's drinking sessions became more and more frequent; in a drunken stupor, he severely beat his mother until she was unconscious. Then “ordinary life” began: the sobered father again carefully went to the “Presence”, the mother spun yarn, sewed, mended and washed clothes. While working, she always sang songs in a particularly sad way, thoughtfully and at the same time businesslike.

Outwardly, Avdotya Mikhailovna was an ordinary woman: short, with a soft face, gray eyes, brown hair, always combed smoothly - and so modest, unnoticeable. In his memoirs “Pages from My Life,” Chaliapin wrote that as a five-year-old boy he listened to how in the evenings his mother and neighbors “to the hum of spindles began to sing mournful songs about white fluffy snow, about girlish melancholy and about a splinter, complaining that it was burning unclearly. And she really did not burn clearly. Under the sad words of the song, my soul quietly dreamed of something, I...rushed through the fields among the fluffy snow...”

I was surprised by the mother’s silent fortitude, her stubborn resistance to need and poverty. There are some special women in Rus': they tirelessly struggle with need all their lives, without hope of victory, without complaints, enduring the blows of fate with the courage of great martyrs. Chaliapin's mother was one of such women. She baked and sold pies with fish and berries, washed dishes on ships and brought leftovers from there: ungnawed bones, pieces of cutlets, chicken, fish, scraps of bread. But this also happened infrequently. The family was starving.

Here is another story from Fyodor Ivanovich about his childhood: “I remember being five years old. On a dark autumn evening I am sitting in the tent of the miller Tikhon Karpovich in the village of Ometeva near Kazan, behind Sukonnaya Sloboda. The miller's wife, Kirillovna, my mother and two or three neighbors are spinning yarn in a dim room, illuminated by the uneven, dim light of a splinter. The splinter is stuck into an iron holder - a light; the burning coals fall into a tub of water, and hiss and sigh, and shadows crawl along the walls, as if someone invisible is hanging black muslin. The rain is noisy outside the windows; the wind sighs in the chimney.

Women spin, quietly telling each other terrible stories about how the dead, their husbands, fly to young widows at night. The deceased husband will fly in like a fiery serpent, scatter over the chimney of the hut in a sheaf of sparks and suddenly appear in the stove like a sparrow, and then turn into a loved one for whom the woman yearns.

She kisses him, has mercy on him, but when she wants to hug him, she asks him not to touch his back.

This is because, my dears,” Kirillovna explained, that he has no back, and in its place there is a green fire, such that if you touch it, it will burn a person and his soul together...

A fiery serpent flew towards a widow from a neighboring village for a long time, so the widow began to dry out and think. The neighbors noticed this; They found out what was the matter and ordered her to break up the dirt in the forest and cross all the doors and windows and every crevice with them. So she did, after listening to good people. A snake has arrived, but it can’t get into the hut. Out of anger, he turned into a fiery horse, and kicked the gate so hard that he knocked down the whole panel...

All these stories excited me very much: it was both scary and pleasant to listen to them. I thought: what amazing stories there are in the world...

Following the stories, the women, accompanied by the whirring of the spindles, began to sing mournful songs about white fluffy snow, about girlish melancholy and about the splinter, complaining that it was burning dimly. And she really did not burn clearly. Under the sad words of the song, my soul quietly dreamed of something, I flew over the earth on a fiery horse, rushed through the fields among the fluffy snow, imagined God how early in the morning he releases the sun - a fiery bird - from a golden cage into the expanse of the blue sky.

The round dances that took place twice a year filled me with special joy: at Semik and at Spas.

Girls came in scarlet ribbons, in bright sundresses, rouged and whitened. The guys also dressed up in a special way; everyone stood in a circle and, leading a round dance, sang wonderful songs. The gait, the outfits, the festive faces of the people - everything depicted some kind of different life, beautiful and important, without fights, quarrels, drunkenness.

It happened that my father went with me to the city to the bathhouse.

It was deep autumn and there was ice. The father slipped, fell and sprained his leg. Somehow we got home, and the mother was in despair:

What will happen to us, what will happen? - she repeated heartbrokenly.

In the morning, her father sent her to the council so that she could tell the secretary why her father could not come to work.

Let him send someone to make sure that I’m really sick! They'll drive you away, the devils, perhaps...

I already understood that if my father was driven out of the service, our situation would be terrible, even if you go around the world! And so we huddled in a village hut for one and a half rubles a month. I remember very well the fear with which my father and mother pronounced the word:

They'll kick you out of the service!

Mother invited healers, important and creepy people, they crushed my father’s leg, rubbed it with some deadly-smelling potions, and even, I remember, burned it with fire. But still, my father could not get out of bed for a very long time. This incident forced my parents to leave the village and, in order to get closer to my father’s place of service, we moved to the city on Rybnoryadskaya Street to Lisitsyn’s house, in which my father and mother lived before, and where I was born in 1873.

I didn't like the noisy, dirty life of the city. We all fit in one room - mother, father, me and little brother and sister. I was then six or seven years old. My mother went to work as a day laborer - mopping floors, washing clothes, and she locked me and the little ones in the room for the whole day from morning to evening. We lived in a wooden shack and if there was a fire, locked up, we would burn. But still, I managed to put part of the frame in the window, all three of us climbed out of the room and ran along the street, not forgetting to return home at a certain hour.

I carefully sealed the frame again, and everything remained sewn and covered.

In the evening, without fire, in a locked room it was scary; I felt especially bad remembering the terrible fairy tales and gloomy stories of Kirillovna, it all seemed that Baba Yaga and the kikimora would appear. Despite the heat, we all huddled under the blanket and lay in silence, afraid to stick our heads out, gasping for breath. And when one of the three coughed or sighed, we said to each other:

Don't breathe, be quiet!

In the yard there was a dull noise, behind the door there were cautious rustles... I was terribly happy when I heard my mother’s hands confidently and calmly unlocking the door lock. This door opened into a darkened corridor, which was the “back door” to the apartment of some general’s wife. One day, meeting me in the corridor, the general’s wife spoke kindly to me about something and then inquired whether I was literate.

Here, come to me, my son will teach you to read and write!

I came to her, and her son, a high school student of about 16, immediately, as if he had been waiting for this for a long time, began to teach me to read; I learned to read quite quickly, to the pleasure of the general’s wife, and she began to force me to read aloud to her in the evenings.

Soon I came across a fairy tale about Bova Korolevich - I was very amazed that Bova could simply kill and disperse a hundred thousand army with a broom. “Good guy! - I thought. “If only I could do that!” Excited by the desire for achievement, I went out into the yard, took a broom and furiously chased the chickens, for which the chicken owners beat me mercilessly.

I was about 8 years old when, on Christmastide or Easter, I first saw the clown Yashka in a booth. Yakov Mamonov was at that time famous throughout the Volga as a “clown” and “Shrovetide Day”.

Fascinated by the street performer, I stood in front of the booth until my legs went numb, and my eyes were dazzled by the colorful clothes of the booth workers.

This is happiness to be a person like Yashka! - I dreamed.

All his artists seemed to me people full of inexhaustible joy; people who enjoy clowning around, joking and laughing. More than once I saw that when they crawled out onto the terrace of the booth, steam rose from them, like from samovars, and, of course, it never occurred to me that it was sweat evaporating, caused by devilish labor, painful muscle tension. I don’t presume to say with complete certainty that it was Yakov Mamonov who gave the first impetus, which, imperceptibly for me, awakened in my soul the attraction to the life of an artist, but perhaps it was to this man, who gave himself up to the amusement of the crowd, that I owe the early awakening interest in the theater in me , to a “perception” that is so different from reality.

I soon learned that Mamonov was a shoemaker, and that for the first time he began to “perform” with his wife, son and students of his workshop, of whom he formed his first troupe. This won me over in his favor even more - not everyone can crawl out of the basement and climb up to the booth! I spent whole days near the booth and was terribly sorry when Lent came, Easter and St. Thomas Week passed - then the square was orphaned, and the canvas was removed from the booths, thin wooden ribs were exposed, and there were no people on the trampled snow, covered with the husks of sunflowers, nut shells , pieces of paper from cheap candies. The holiday disappeared like a dream. Until recently, everyone lived here noisily and cheerfully, but now the square is like a cemetery without graves and crosses.

For a long time afterwards I had unusual dreams: some long corridors with round windows, from which I saw fabulously beautiful cities, mountains, amazing temples that do not exist in Kazan, and a lot of beauty that can only be seen in a dream and a panorama.

One day I, who rarely went to church, was playing on a Saturday evening near the Church of St. Varlaamia, went into it. There was an all-night vigil. From the threshold I heard harmonious singing. I squeezed closer to the singers - men and boys were singing on the choir. I noticed that the boys were holding scribbled sheets of paper in their hands; I had already heard that there are notes for singing, and even somewhere I saw this lined paper with black squiggles, which, in my opinion, were impossible to understand. But here I noticed something completely inaccessible to reason: the boys were holding in their hands, although graphite, completely clean paper, without black squiggles. I had to think a lot before I realized that the musical notes were placed on the side of the paper that faced the singers. I heard choral singing for the first time, and I really liked it.

Soon after this, we moved again to Sukonnaya Sloboda, to two small rooms on the basement floor. It seems that on the same day I heard church singing above my head and immediately recognized that there was church singing above my head and immediately learned that the regent lived above us and was now having a rehearsal. When the singing stopped and the singers dispersed, I bravely went upstairs and there asked the man, whom I could barely see from embarrassment, if he would take me as a singer. The man silently took the violin from the wall and said to me:

Pull the bow!

I carefully pulled out a few notes from the violin, then the regent said: “There is a voice, there is a hearing.” I'll write you notes, learn them!

He wrote scales on paper rulers and explained to me what sharp, flat and keys are. All this immediately interested me. I quickly grasped the wisdom and after two all-night vigils I was already distributing notes to the choristers by key. My mother was terribly happy about my success, my father remained indifferent, but still expressed the hope that if I sing well, then maybe I’ll earn at least a ruble a month to supplement his meager earnings. And so it happened: for three months I sang for free, and then the regent gave me a salary - one and a half rubles a month.

The regent's name was Shcherbinin, and he was a special person: he wore long, combed-back hair and blue glasses, which gave him a very stern and noble appearance, although his face was ugly pitted with smallpox. He dressed in some kind of wide black robe without sleeves, a lionfish, wore a robber's hat on his head and was taciturn. But despite all his nobility, he drank as desperately as all the inhabitants of the Cloth Settlement, and since he served as a scribe in the district court, the 20th was fatal for him too. In Sukonnaya Sloboda, more than in other parts of the city, after the 20th people became pitiful, unhappy and insane, producing a desperate chaos involving all the elements and the entire stock of swear words. I felt sorry for the regent, and when I saw him wildly drunk, my soul ached for him.”

In 1883, Fyodor Chaliapin went to the theater for the first time. He managed to get a ticket to the gallery for the production of “Russian Wedding” by Pyotr Sukhonin. Remembering this day, Chaliapin later wrote: “I was about twelve years old when I went to the theater for the first time. It happened like this: in the spiritual choir where I sang, there was a handsome young man Pankratyev. He was already 17 years old, but he still sang in treble...

So, one day during mass Pankratiev asked me if I wanted to go to the theater? He has an extra ticket worth 20 kopecks. I knew that the theater was a large stone building with semicircular windows. Through the dusty glass of these windows some garbage looks out onto the street. They can hardly do anything in this house that would be interesting to me.

What will happen there? - I asked.

- “Russian Wedding” - a daytime performance.

Wedding? I sang at weddings so often that this ceremony could no longer excite my curiosity. If it were a French wedding, it would be more interesting. But still, I bought a ticket from Pankratiev, although not very willingly.

And here I am in the theater gallery. It was a holiday. There are a lot of people. I had to stand with my hands on the ceiling.

I looked in amazement into a huge well, surrounded by semicircular places on the walls, at its dark bottom, set up with rows of chairs, among which people were scattered. The gas was burning, and its smell remained a most pleasant smell for me all my life. On the curtain there was a picture written: “A green oak, a golden chain on that oak tree” and “a learned cat keeps walking around the chain” - Medvedev’s curtain. The orchestra was playing. Suddenly the curtain trembled, rose, and I was immediately stunned, enchanted. Some kind of vaguely familiar fairy tale came to life before me. Superbly dressed people walked around the room, wonderfully decorated, talking to each other in a particularly beautiful way. I didn't understand what they were saying. I was shocked to the depths of my soul by the spectacle and, without blinking, without thinking about anything, I looked at these miracles.

The curtain fell, and I still stood, enchanted by a waking dream, which I had never seen, but always waited for it, and still wait for it to this day. People shouted, pushed me, left and came back again, but I still stood there. And when the performance ended, they began to put out the fire, I felt sad. I couldn’t believe that this life had stopped.

My arms and legs were numb. I remember that I was unsteady when I went outside. I realized that theater is incomparably more interesting than Yashka Mamonov’s booth. It was strange to see that it was daytime and bronze Derzhavin was illuminated by the setting sun. I returned to the theater again and bought a ticket for the evening performance...

The theater drove me crazy, made me almost insane. Returning home through the deserted streets, seeing, as if in a dream, the rare streetlights winking at each other, I stopped on the sidewalks, remembered the magnificent speeches of the actors, and recited them, imitating the facial expressions and gestures of everyone.

I am a queen, but I am a woman and a mother! - I exclaimed in the silence of the night, to the surprise of the sleepy watchmen. It happened that a gloomy passer-by stopped in front of me and asked:

What's the matter?

Confused, I ran away from him, and he, looking after me, probably thought he was drunk, boy!

...I myself didn’t understand why in the theater they talk about love beautifully, sublimely and purely, but in the Cloth Settlement love is a dirty, obscene matter that arouses evil ridicule? On the stage, love causes exploits, but on ours, it causes massacres. So, are there two loves? Is one considered the highest happiness of life, and the other - debauchery and sin? Of course, at that time I did not think much about this contradiction, but, of course, I could not help but see it. It really hit me in the eyes and in the soul...

When I asked my father if I could go to the theater, he wouldn’t let me. He said:

You should go to the janitors, well, to the janitors, and not to the theater! You have to be a janitor, and you will have a piece of bread, you bastard! What's good about the theater? You didn’t want to be a craftsman and you will rot in prison. How well-fed the artisans live, dressed and shod.

I saw the artisans mostly in rags, barefoot, half-starved and drunk, but I believed my father.

After all, I’m working, copying papers,” I said. - I wrote so much...

He threatened me: If you finish studying, I will harness you to work! So you know, you idiot!”

A visit to the theater decided the fate of Fyodor Chaliapin. When he was very young, he wanted to perform in Serebryakov’s entertainment choir, where he met with Maxim Gorky, who was accepted into the choir, but Chaliapin was not. Without getting to know each other, they parted, only to meet in Nizhny Novgorod in 1900 and become friends for life. 17-year-old Chaliapin left Kazan and went to Ufa, signing a contract for the summer season with Semenov-Samarsky. Subsequently, while in Paris, Fyodor Chaliapin wrote to Gorky in 1928: “I felt a little sad when I read in a letter about your stay in Kazan. How before my eyes this most beautiful (for me, of course) of all the cities in the world grew in my memory - the city! I remembered my varied life in it, happiness and misfortune... and almost cried, stopping my imagination at the dear Kazan City Theater...”

On December 30, 1890, in Ufa, Fyodor Chaliapin sang the solo part for the first time. He said about this event: “Apparently, even in the modest role of a choir member, I managed to show my natural musicality and good vocal abilities. When one day one of the baritones of the troupe suddenly, on the eve of the performance, for some reason refused the role of Stolnik in Moniuszko’s opera “Pebble”, and there was no one to replace him in the troupe, the entrepreneur Semyonov-Samarsky asked me if I would agree to sing this part. Despite my extreme shyness, I agreed. It was too tempting: the first serious role in my life. I quickly learned the part and performed. Despite the sad incident (I sat past a chair on stage), Semenov-Samarsky was still moved by both my singing and my conscientious desire to portray something similar to the Polish tycoon. He added five rubles to my salary and began to assign me other roles as well. I still think superstitiously: it’s a good sign for a newcomer to sit past the chair in the first performance on stage in front of an audience. Throughout my subsequent career, however, I kept a vigilant eye on the chair and was afraid not only to sit by, but also to sit in the chair of another... In this first season of mine, I also sang Fernando in “Troubadour” and Neizvestny in “Askold’s Grave.” Success finally strengthened my decision to devote myself to the theater.”

Then the young singer moved to Tiflis, where he took free singing lessons from singer Dmitry Usatov and performed in amateur and student concerts. In 1894, he sang in performances held in the St. Petersburg country garden "Arcadia", then at the Panaevsky Theater. On April 5, 1895, Fyodor made his debut as Mephistopheles in the opera Faust by Charles Gounod at the Mariinsky Theater.

In 1896, Chaliapin was invited by Savva Mamontov to the Moscow Private Opera, where he took a leading position and fully revealed his talent, creating over the years of work in this theater a whole gallery of unforgettable images in Russian operas: Ivan the Terrible in “The Woman of Pskov” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , Dosifey in Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov in the opera of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky. “One more great artist,” wrote V. Stasov about twenty-five-year-old Chaliapin.

Chaliapin as Tsar Boris Godunov.

“Mamontov gave me the right to work freely,” recalled Fyodor Ivanovich. “I immediately began to improve all the roles of my repertoire: Susanin, Melnik, Mephistopheles.”

Chaliapin, having decided to stage Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Woman of Pskov,” said: “To find the face of Ivan the Terrible, I went to the Tretyakov Gallery to look at paintings by Schwartz, Repin, a sculpture by Antokolsky... Someone told me that the engineer Chokolov has a portrait of Ivan the Terrible by Viktor Vasnetsov . It seems that this portrait is still unknown to the general public. He made a great impression on me. It shows the face of Ivan the Terrible in three-quarters. The king looks somewhere to the side with his fiery dark eye. By combining everything that Repin, Vasnetsov and Schwartz gave me, I made a fairly successful make-up, the correct figure, in my opinion.”

The opera premiered at the Mamontov Theater on December 12, 1896. Fyodor Chaliapin sang Grozny. The scenery and costumes for the performance were made according to the sketches of Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. “Pskovite” blew up Moscow and was in full gear. “The main decoration of the performance was Chaliapin, who played the role of Ivan the Terrible. He created a very characteristic figure,” admired critic Nikolai Kashkin.

“The Pskov Woman” brought me closer to Viktor Vasnetsov, who generally had a cordial affection for me,” said Chaliapin. Vasnetsov invited the artist to his home, on Meshchanskaya Street. The singer was delighted with his house, built from large thick logs, simple oak benches, a table, and stools. “It was pleasant for me in such an atmosphere,” Chaliapin continued the story, “to hear from Vasnetsov warm praise for the image of Ivan the Terrible that I created, whom he painted descending from the stairs in mittens and with a staff.”

Chaliapin and Vasnetsov became friends. Viktor Mikhailovich mentally recalled his childhood and youth years in Vyatka. Chaliapin told his friend about his sad, restless wanderings around Russia, about the impoverished wandering life of an artist. One day, Fyodor Ivanovich shared his thoughts about the role of the Miller in Dargomyzhsky’s opera “Rusalka,” in which he was soon to perform at the Mamontovsky Theater. The artist, interested in this, made a sketch of the costume and makeup for the role of the Miller. In it he conveyed the sedateness, slyness, good nature, and acumen of the Miller. This is how Fyodor Chaliapin portrayed him on stage.

The performance turned out to be extremely successful, and Viktor Mikhailovich was happy for the artist. Subsequently, he more than once recalled Chaliapin in the role of the Miller. When Vasnetsov bought a small old estate in the Moscow region with a stalled water mill, he told his loved ones: “I will definitely order the mill to be repaired and I will invite the best miller in Russia - Fyodor Chaliapin! Let him grind flour for himself and sing songs to us!”

When in 1902 Chaliapin was rehearsing the role of Farlaf in Glinka’s opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” at his request, Viktor Mikhailovich made a sketch of the costume and makeup: in chain mail to the knees, with a huge sword, this “fearless” knight stands, proudly akimbo and sticking out his leg. The artist emphasized Farlaf’s ostentatious courage, his arrogance and arrogance. Chaliapin developed the features outlined in the sketch, adding to them unbridled boastfulness and narcissism. In this role, the artist had a resounding, colossal success. “In my glorious and great fellow countryman, his genius is dear and valuable to me, charming for all of us,” said Viktor Mikhailovich.

“I felt how spiritually transparent, for all his creative massiveness, Vasnetsov was,” Chaliapin wrote. – His knights and heroes, resurrecting the very atmosphere of Ancient Rus', instilled in me a feeling of great power – physical and spiritual. Viktor Vasnetsov’s work was reminiscent of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”

Communication at the Mamontov theater with the best artists of Russia V. Polenov, I. Levitan, V. Serov, M. Vrubel, K. Korovin gave the singer powerful incentives for creativity: their scenery and costumes helped in creating a convincing stage image. The singer prepared a number of opera roles in the theater with the then novice conductor and composer Sergei Rachmaninov. Creative friendship united these two great artists until the end of their lives. Rachmaninov dedicated several of his romances to the singer: “Fate” to the words of A. Apukhtin and “You knew him” to the words of F. Tyutchev and other works.

Fyodor Chaliapin, Ilya Repin and his daughter Vera Ilnichna.

The singer's deeply national art delighted his contemporaries. “In Russian art, Chaliapin is an era like Pushkin,” wrote Gorky. Relying on the best traditions of the national vocal school, Chaliapin opened a new era in the national musical theater. He managed to surprisingly organically combine the two most important principles of operatic art - dramatic and musical, and subordinate his tragic gift, unique stage performance and deep musicality to a single artistic concept. “The sculptor of operatic gesture,” is what music critic B. Asafiev called the singer.

On September 24, 1899, Chaliapin became the leading soloist of the Bolshoi and at the same time the Mariinsky theaters, and toured abroad with triumphant success. In 1901, at La Scala in Milan, he sang the role of Mephistopheles in the opera of the same name by A. Boito with Enrico Caruso, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, with great success. The world fame of the Russian singer was confirmed by tours in Rome in 1904, Monte Carlo in 1905, Orange in France in 1905, Berlin in 1907, New York in 1908, Paris in 1908 and London in the period from 1913 to 1914. The divine beauty of Chaliapin's voice captivated listeners from all countries. His naturally high bass with a velvety soft timbre sounded full-blooded, powerful and possessed a rich palette of vocal intonations.

Chaliapin and writer A.I. Kuprin.

“I walk and think. “I walk and think - and I think about Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin,” wrote the writer Leonid Andreev in 1902. “I remember his singing, his powerful and slender figure, his incomprehensibly mobile, purely Russian face - and strange transformations take place before my eyes... Because of the good-natured and softly outlined physiognomy of the Vyatka peasant, Mephistopheles himself looks at me with all the prickliness of his features and satanic mind, with all its devilish malice and mysterious understatement. Mephistopheles himself, I repeat. Not that sneering vulgar who, together with a disappointed hairdresser, wanders around the theater stage in vain and sings badly to the conductor’s baton - no, a real devil, from whom horror emanates.

...And to the queen herself
And her maids of honor
No more urine from fleas,
There was no more life. Ha ha!

And they are afraid to touch
It's not like hitting them.
And we, who began to bite,
Come on now - choke!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

That is, “Sorry, brothers, I think I was joking about some kind of flea. Yes, I was joking - should we have a beer: there is good beer here. Hey waiter! And the brothers, looking sideways in disbelief, quietly looking for the stranger’s treacherous tail, choke on beer, smile pleasantly, one after another slip out of the cellar and silently make their way home by the wall. And only at home, having closed the shutters and fenced off from the world with the corpulent body of Frau Margarita, they mysteriously and warily whisper to her: “You know, darling, today I think I saw the devil”...

What else to say? Perhaps we should joke at the end of the story together with Chaliapin. As Chekhov wrote: “If a man doesn’t understand a joke, he’s lost!” And you know: this is not a real mind, even if a person has seven spans in his forehead.”

One day an amateur singer came to Chaliapin and rather impudently asked:

– Fyodor Ivanovich, I need to rent your costume in which you sang Mephistopheles. Don't worry, I'll pay you!

Chaliapin stands in a theatrical pose, takes a deep breath and sings:

- The flea has a caftan?! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The effect of artistic transformation amazed listeners in the singer, and the singer amazed not only with his external appearance (Chaliapin paid special attention to makeup, costume, plasticity, and gesture), but also with the deep inner content that his vocal speech conveyed. In creating capacious and scenically expressive images, the singer was helped by his extraordinary versatility: he was both a sculptor and an artist, he wrote poetry and prose. Such versatile talent of the great artist was reminiscent of the masters of the Renaissance. Contemporaries compared his opera heroes to Michelangelo's titans.

Chaliapin's art crossed national boundaries and influenced the development of the world opera theater. Many Western conductors, artists and singers could repeat the words of the Italian conductor and composer D. Gavadzeni: “Chaliapin’s innovation in the field of dramatic truth of operatic art had a strong impact on the Italian theater... The dramatic art of the great Russian artist left a deep and lasting mark not only in the field of performance of Russian operas by Italian singers, but also in general on the entire style of their vocal and stage interpretation, including the works of Verdi...”

Moscow changed Chaliapin's life completely and irrevocably. Here Fyodor Ivanovich met his future wife, the Italian ballerina Iola Lo-Presti, who performed under the pseudonym Tornaghi. Desperately in love, the singer confessed his feelings in the most original way. During the run-through of “Eugene Onegin” in Gremin’s aria the words were unexpectedly heard: “Onegin, I swear on my sword, I love Tornagi madly!” Iola was sitting in the hall at that moment.

Chaliapin and Iola Tornagi.

“In the summer of 1898,” Chaliapin recalled, “I married the ballerina Tornaghi in a small rural church. After the wedding, we had some kind of funny Turkish feast: we sat on the floor, on the carpets and got into mischief like little kids. There was nothing that is considered obligatory at weddings: no richly decorated table with a variety of dishes, no eloquent toasts, but there were many wild flowers and red wine.

In the morning, at about six o'clock, a hellish noise erupted at the window of my room - a crowd of friends led by S.I. Mamontov was performing a concert on stove views, iron dampers, on buckets and some kind of piercing whistles. It reminded me a little of Cloth Settlement.

- Why the hell are you sleeping here? - Mamontov shouted. – People don’t come to the village to sleep! Get up, let's go into the forest to pick mushrooms. And don't forget the wine!

And again they pounded on the shutters, whistled, and shouted. And this irrepressible chaos was conducted by S.V. Rachmaninov.”

After the wedding, the young wife left the stage, devoting herself to her family. She gave birth to Chaliapin six children.

The press loved to calculate the artist's fees, supporting the myth of Chaliapin's fabulous wealth and greed. Even Bunin, in a brilliant essay about the singer, could not resist philistine reasoning: “He loved money, almost never sang for charitable purposes, he loved to say: “Only birds sing for free.” But the singer’s performances in Kyiv, Kharkov and Petrograd in front of huge working audiences are known. During the First World War, Chaliapin's tours stopped. The singer opened two hospitals for wounded soldiers at his own expense, but did not advertise his “good deeds.” Lawyer M.F. Volkenstein, who handled the singer’s financial affairs for many years, recalled: “If only they knew how much Chaliapin’s money passed through my hands to help those who needed it!”

This is what Chaliapin himself wrote in a letter to Gorky from Monte Carlo in 1912: “...on December 26, in the afternoon, I gave a concert in favor of the starving. I collected 16,500 pure rubles. He distributed this amount among six provinces: Ufa, Simbirsk, Saratov, Samara, Kazan and Vyatka...”

In his letter to his daughter Irina, Fyodor Chaliapin reported that on February 10, 1917, he staged a performance at the Bolshoi Theater for charity. The opera “Don Carlos” was on. He distributed the proceeds from the performance among the poor population of Moscow, wounded soldiers and their families, political exiles, including the People's House in the village of Vozhgaly (Vyatka province and district) - 1800 rubles.

The following story is known. The wartime of 1914 found Chaliapin outside Russia, in Brittany. Muscovites returning from Brittany talked about the wonderful, marvelous afternoon concert that Chaliapin gave there in the open air on the beach. The weather was amazing. Chaliapin, among others, was walking on the shore, waiting for fresh newspapers. Suddenly “camlots” appeared with flyers:

– Russian victory in East Prussia!!!

Chaliapin uncovered his head. The entire crowd followed his example. Suddenly the sounds of Chaliapin’s unique, powerful voice were heard. He sang a lot and willingly, and then he took his hat and began collecting for the benefit of the wounded. They gave generously. Chaliapin sent this money for the needs of the front.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Fyodor Chaliapin was involved in the creative reconstruction of the former imperial theaters, was an elected member of the directors of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, and directed the artistic department of the Mariinsky Theater in 1918. In the same year, he was the first artist to be awarded the title of People's Artist of the Republic. At the same time, the singer tried in every possible way to get away from politics; in the book of his memoirs he wrote: “If I was anything in life, it was only an actor and singer; I was completely devoted to my calling. But least of all I was a politician.”

Outwardly, it might seem that Chaliapin’s life was prosperous and creatively rich. He was invited to perform at official concerts, he performed a lot for the general public, he was awarded honorary titles, asked to lead the work of various kinds of artistic juries and theater councils. But then there were sharp calls to “socialize Chaliapin”, “put his talent at the service of the people”, and doubts were often expressed about the singer’s “class loyalty”. Someone demanded the mandatory involvement of his family in performing labor duties, someone made direct threats to the former artist of the imperial theaters... “I saw more and more clearly that no one needed what I could do, that there was no point in my work no,” admitted the artist. The peak of the singer's popularity coincided with the advent of Soviet power. Lenin and Lunacharsky, realizing the influence Chaliapin had on the minds of listeners, invented a way to attract the artist to their side. The title “People’s Artist of the Republic” was established especially for Chaliapin in 1918. By this time, the singer sang at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, often went on tour and earned a lot. But his expenses were also great: he actually lived in two houses. In St. Petersburg, the singer had a second family - his wife Maria and three daughters, not counting his wife’s two girls from his first marriage. Iola, who did not give a divorce, and his five eldest children remained in Moscow. And he rushed between two cities and two beloved women.

On June 29, 1922, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin left Russia to emigrate, officially on tour. The decision to leave Russia did not come to Chaliapin right away. From the singer's memoirs:

“If from my first trip abroad I returned to St. Petersburg with some hope of somehow breaking free, then from the second I returned home with the firm intention of making this dream come true. I became convinced that abroad I could live more calmly, more independently, without giving anyone any reports about anything, without asking, like a preparatory class student, whether I can go out or not...

I couldn’t imagine living abroad alone, without my beloved family, and leaving with the whole family was, of course, more difficult - would they allow it? And here - I confess - I decided to betray my soul. I began to develop the idea that my performances abroad bring benefits to the Soviet government and give it great publicity. “Here, they say, are the kind of artists who live and prosper in the ‘soviets’!” I didn't think that, of course. Everyone understands that if I sing well and play well, then the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars is not to blame for this, neither in soul nor in body, that this is how the Lord God created me, long before Bolshevism. I just added this to my profit.

However, they took my idea seriously and very favorably. Soon in my pocket lay the treasured permission for me to travel abroad with my family...

However, my daughter, who is married, my first wife and my sons remained in Moscow. I did not want to expose them to any troubles in Moscow and therefore turned to Felix Dzerzhinsky with a request not to draw hasty conclusions from any reports about me in the foreign press. Maybe there will be an enterprising reporter who will publish a sensational interview with me, but I never dreamed of it.

Dzerzhinsky listened to me carefully and said: “Okay.”

Two or three weeks after this, on an early summer morning, a small circle of my acquaintances and friends gathered on one of the Neva embankments, not far from the Art Academy. My family and I stood on the deck. We waved our handkerchiefs. And my dearest musicians of the Mariinsky Orchestra, my old blood colleagues, played marches.

When the ship moved, from the stern of which I, having taken off my hat, waved it and bowed to them - then at this sad moment for me, sad because I already knew that I would not return to my homeland for a long time - the musicians began to play “The Internationale” ...

So, before the eyes of my friends, in the cold transparent waters of the Tsarina Neva, the imaginary Bolshevik Fyodor Chaliapin melted forever.”

Visiting the artist I. Repin in Penaty.

In the spring of 1922, Chaliapin did not return from his foreign tour, although for some time he continued to consider his non-return temporary. The home environment played a significant role in what happened. Caring for children and the fear of leaving them without a means of subsistence forced Fyodor Ivanovich to agree to endless tours. The eldest daughter Irina remained to live in Moscow with her husband and mother, Pola Ignatievna Tornagi-Chalyapina. Other children from the first marriage - Lydia, Boris, Fedor, Tatiana and children from the second marriage - Marina, Marfa, Dassia and the children of Maria Valentinovna (second wife) - Edward and Stella lived with them in Paris. Chaliapin was especially proud of his son Boris, who, according to N. Benois, achieved “great success as a landscape and portrait painter.”

Chaliapin with his sons Fyodor and Boris, 1928.

Fyodor Ivanovich willingly posed for his son; The portraits and sketches of his father made by Boris became priceless monuments to the great artist.

Boris Shalyapin. Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin, 1934.

But later, the singer more than once asked himself the question why he left and did he do the right thing? Here is a fragment from the memoirs of one of the people closest to Fyodor Ivanovich - the artist Konstantin Korovin:

“One summer we went with Chaliapin to the Marne. We stopped on the shore near a small cafe. There were large trees all around. Chaliapin started talking:

Listen, here we are now sitting by these trees, the birds are singing, it’s spring. We drink coffee. Why are we not in Russia? It's all so complicated - I don't understand anything. No matter how many times I asked myself what was the matter, no one could explain to me. Bitter! He says something, but cannot explain anything. Although he pretends that he knows something. And it’s starting to seem to me that he doesn’t know anything. This international movement can embrace everyone. I bought from different places at home. Maybe I'll have to run again.

Chaliapin spoke with concern, his face was like parchment - yellow, and it seemed to me that some other person was talking to me.

“I’m going to America to sing concerts,” he continued. - Yurok is calling... We need to be treated quickly. Yearning...".

Abroad, meanwhile, Fyodor Chaliapin's concerts enjoyed constant success; he toured almost all countries of the world - England, America, Canada, China, Japan, and the Hawaiian Islands. Since 1930, Chaliapin performed in the Russian Opera troupe, whose performances were famous for their high level of production culture. The operas “Rusalka”, “Boris Godunov” and “Prince Igor” were particularly successful in Paris. In 1935, Chaliapin was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Music along with Arturo Toscanini and was awarded an academician's diploma.

“Once,” said Alexander Vertinsky, “we were sitting with Chaliapin in a tavern after his concert. After dinner, Chaliapin took a pencil and began to draw on the tablecloth. He drew quite well. When we paid and left the tavern, the hostess caught up with us already on the street. Not knowing that it was Chaliapin, she attacked Fyodor Ivanovich, shouting:

-You ruined my tablecloth! Pay ten crowns for it!

Chaliapin thought.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll pay ten crowns.” But I'll take the tablecloth with me.

The hostess brought a tablecloth and received the money, but while we were waiting for the car, they had already explained to her what was going on.

“You fool,” one of her friends told her, “you should put this tablecloth in a frame under glass and hang it in the hall as proof that you had Chaliapin.” And everyone would come to you and look.

The hostess returned to us and offered ten crowns with an apology, asking us to return the tablecloth back.

Chaliapin shook his head.

“Excuse me, madam,” he said, “the tablecloth is mine, I bought it from you.” And now, if you want to get it back... fifty crowns!

The hostess paid the money and took the tablecloth.

Chaliapin's repertoire included about 70 roles. In the operas of Russian composers, he created images of the Miller in the production of “Rusalka”, Ivan Susanin in the production of “Ivan Susanin”, Boris Godunov and Varlaam in the production of “Boris Godunov”, Ivan the Terrible in the production of “Pskovian Woman”, unsurpassed in strength and life truth. Among his best roles in Western European opera were the roles of Mephistopheles in productions of Faust and Mephistopheles, Don Basilio in the production of The Barber of Seville, Leporello in the production of Don Giovanni and Don Quixote in the production of Don Quixote.

Chaliapin was equally noticeable in chamber vocal performance, where he introduced an element of theatricality and created a kind of “romance theater”. His repertoire included up to 400 songs, romances and other genres of chamber and vocal music. His masterpieces of performance included “The Flea”, “The Forgotten”, “Trepak” by Mussorgsky, “Night View” by Glinka, “The Prophet” by Rimsky-Korsakov, “Two Grenadiers” by R. Schumann, “The Double” by F. Schubert, as well as Russian folk songs “Farewell, joy”, “They don’t tell Masha to go beyond the river”, “Because of the island to the river”. In the 1920s and 1930s he made about 300 recordings. “I love gramophone recordings...” admitted Fyodor Ivanovich. “I am excited and creatively excited by the idea that the microphone symbolizes not a specific audience, but millions of listeners.” The singer himself was very picky about his recordings; among his favorites was the recording of Massenet’s “Elegy,” Russian folk songs, which he included in his concert programs throughout his entire creative life. According to Asafiev’s memoirs: “The wide, powerful, inexorable breath of the great singer saturated the melody, and it was heard that there was no limit to the fields and steppes of our Motherland.”

On August 24, 1927, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution depriving Chaliapin of the title of People's Artist. Gorky did not believe in the possibility of removing the title of People’s Artist from Chaliapin, about which rumors began to spread already in the spring of 1927: “The title of “People’s Artist” given to you by the Council of People’s Commissars can only be revoked by the Council of People’s Commissars, which he did not do, yes, of course , and he won’t.” However, in reality, everything happened completely differently from what Gorky expected... Commenting on the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, Lunacharsky decisively rejected the political background, arguing that “the only motive for depriving Chaliapin of his title was his stubborn reluctance to come, at least for a short time, to his homeland and artistically serve those same people , whose artist he was proclaimed."

The reason for such a sharp aggravation of relations between Chaliapin and the Soviet government was a specific act of the artist. Here is how Chaliapin himself wrote about him in his biography:

“By this time, thanks to success in various European countries, and mainly in America, my financial affairs were in excellent condition. Having left Russia a few years ago as a beggar, I can now make myself a good home, furnished to my own taste. I recently moved to this new home of mine. According to my old upbringing, I wanted to treat this pleasant event religiously and organize a prayer service in my apartment. I am not such a religious person to believe that for serving a prayer service, the Lord God will strengthen the roof of my house and send me a grace-filled life in a new home. But in any case, I felt the need to thank the Supreme Being familiar to our consciousness, which we call God, but in essence we don’t even know whether it exists or not. There is some kind of pleasure in the feeling of gratitude. With these thoughts I went to get the priest. My friend went with me alone. It was summer. We went to the church yard... we visited the sweetest, most educated and most touching priest, Father Georgy Spassky. I invited him to come to my house for a prayer service... When I was leaving Father Spassky’s, at the very porch of his house some women, ragged, shabby, approached me, with equally ragged and disheveled children. These children stood on crooked legs and were covered with scabs. The women asked to give them something for bread. But such an accident happened that neither I nor my friend had any money. It was so awkward to tell these unfortunate people that I had no money. This ruined the joyful mood with which I left the priest. That night I felt disgusting.

After the prayer service I arranged breakfast. There was caviar and good wine on my table. I don’t know how to explain this, but for some reason I remembered the song at breakfast:

“And the despot feasts in a luxurious palace,
Dousing anxiety with wine..."

My soul was truly uneasy. God will not accept my gratitude, and was this prayer service even necessary, I thought. I thought about yesterday’s incident in the churchyard and randomly answered the questions of the guests. It is, of course, possible to help these two women. But are there only two of them or four? Must be a lot. And so I stood up and said:

Father, yesterday I saw unhappy women and children in the churchyard. There are probably a lot of them around the church, and you know them. Let me offer you 5000 francs. Please distribute them at your discretion."

In Soviet newspapers, the artist’s act was regarded as helping the white emigration. However, the USSR did not give up attempts to return Chaliapin. In the fall of 1928, Gorky wrote to Fyodor Ivanovich from Sorrento: “They say - will you sing in Rome? I'll come to listen. They really want to listen to you in Moscow. Stalin, Voroshilov and others told me this. Even the “rock” in Crimea and some other treasures would be returned to you.”

Chaliapin's meeting with Gorky in Rome took place in April 1929. Chaliapin sang “Boris Godunov” with great success. This is how Gorky’s daughter-in-law recalls this meeting: “After the performance, we gathered at the Library tavern.” Everyone was in a very good mood. Alexey Maksimovich and Maxim told a lot of interesting things about the Soviet Union, answered a lot of questions, in conclusion, Alexey Maksimovich said to Fyodor Ivanovich: “Go to your homeland, look at the construction of a new life, at new people, their interest in you is huge, when you see it, you will want to stay there, I'm sure." At this moment, Chaliapin’s wife, who had been silently listening, suddenly decisively declared, turning to Fyodor Ivanovich: “You will only go to the Soviet Union over my corpse.” Everyone’s mood dropped and they quickly got ready to go home.”

Chaliapin and Maxim Gorky.

Chaliapin and Gorky never met again. Chaliapin saw that the cruel time of growing mass repressions was breaking many destinies; he did not want to become either a voluntary victim, or a herald of Stalin’s wisdom, or a werewolf, or a glorifier of the leader of the people.

In 1930, a scandal broke out over the publication of “Pages from My Life” by the Priboi publishing house, for which Chaliapin demanded royalties. This was the reason for Gorky's last letter, written in a harsh, insulting tone. Chaliapin took the break in relations with Gorky seriously. “I lost my best friend,” said the artist.

Living abroad, Chaliapin, like many of his compatriots, sought to maintain connections with family and friends, conducted extensive correspondence with them, and was interested in everything that was happening in the USSR. It is quite possible that he sometimes knew more and better about life in the country than his recipients, who lived in conditions of very limited and distorted information.

F.I. Chaliapin with K.A. Korovin in his Parisian workshop. 1930

Far from his homeland, meetings with Russians - Korovin, Rachmaninov and Anna Pavlova - were especially dear to Chaliapin. Chaliapin was familiar with Toti Dal Monte, Maurice Ravel, Charlie Chaplin and H.G. Wells. In 1932, Fyodor Ivanovich starred in the film “Don Quixote” at the suggestion of the German director Georg Pabst. The film was popular with the public.

Chaliapin and Rachmaninov.

In his declining years, Chaliapin yearned for Russia, gradually lost his cheerfulness and optimism, did not sing new opera roles, and began to get sick often. In May 1937, after touring in Japan and America, the always energetic and tireless Chaliapin returned to Paris exhausted, very pale and with a strange greenish lump on his forehead, about which he sadly joked: “Another second, and I will be a real cuckold!” The family doctor, Monsieur Gendron, explained his condition as ordinary fatigue and advised the singer to rest at the then popular resort in Reichenhall, near Vienna. However, resort life did not work out. Overcoming his growing weakness, Chaliapin nevertheless gave several concerts in London in the fall, and when he arrived home, Dr. Gendron was seriously alarmed and invited the best French doctors to a consultation. The patient's blood was taken for testing. The next day the answer was ready. The singer’s wife, Maria Vikentievna, was informed: her husband has leukemia - leukemia and he has four months to live, five at most. Bone marrow transplants had not yet been performed, and there were no drugs that suppressed the production of “malignant” leukocytes. In order to somehow slow down the development of the disease, doctors recommended the only possible remedy - a blood transfusion. The donor turned out to be a Frenchman named Chien, or Sharikov in Russian. Chaliapin, who was unaware of the terrible diagnosis, was extremely amused by this circumstance. He claimed that after a course of procedures, at his first performance he would bark on stage like a dog. But there was no question of returning to the theater. The patient was getting worse: in March he no longer got out of bed.

The news of the great artist’s illness leaked to the press. Journalists were on duty at the doors of Chaliapin's mansion day and night, and his performance of the final aria of the dying Boris Godunov was heard on all French and English radio channels. An acquaintance who visited Chaliapin in recent days was shocked by his courage: “What a great artist! Imagine, even on the edge of the grave, realizing that the end is near, he feels like he’s on stage: he’s playing death!” On April 12, 1938, before his death, Chaliapin fell into oblivion and persistently demanded: “Give me water! The throat is completely dry. We need to drink water. After all, the public is waiting. We must sing. The public cannot be deceived! They paid..." Many years later, Dr. Gendron admitted: “Never in my long life as a doctor have I seen a more beautiful death.”

After the death of Fyodor Ivanovich, there were no notorious “Chaliapin millions”. The daughter of the great Russian singer, dramatic artist Irina Fedorovna, wrote in her memoirs: “My father was always afraid of poverty - he saw too much poverty and grief in his childhood and youth. He often said bitterly: “My mother died of hunger.” Yes, my father, of course, had money, earned with great difficulty. But he knew how to spend it – widely, to help people, for public needs.”

Until the end of his life, Chaliapin remained a Russian citizen, did not accept foreign citizenship and dreamed of being buried in his homeland. 46 years after his death, his wish came true: the singer’s ashes were transported to Moscow and buried on October 29, 1984 at the Novodevichy cemetery.

In 1991, the title “People’s Artist of the Republic” was returned to him.

A television program from the series “More than Love” was filmed about the relationship between Fyodor Chaliapin and Iola Tornaghi.

In 1992, a documentary film “The Great Chaliapin” was made about Fyodor Chaliapin.

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Text prepared by Tatyana Halina

Used materials:

Kotlyarov Yu., Garmash V. Chronicle of the life and work of F.I. Chaliapin.
F.I. Chaliapin. “Mask and Soul. My forty years in theaters" (autobiography)
Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin. Album-catalogue from the collections of the State Central Theater Museum named after. A.A.Bakhrushina
Materials from the site www.shalyapin-museum.org
Igor Pound for the 140th anniversary of the birth of F.I. Chaliapin

Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was born on February 1 (13), 1873, in Kazan. As a child, Fyodor sang in the church choir. Before entering school, he studied shoemaking with N.A. Tonkov and V.A. Andreev. He received his primary education at Vedernikova’s private school. Then he entered the Kazan parish school.

His studies at the school ended in 1885. In the fall of the same year, he entered the vocational school in Arsk.

The beginning of a creative journey

In 1889, Chaliapin became a member of the drama troupe of V. B. Serebryakov. In the spring of 1890, the artist's first solo performance took place. Chaliapin performed the part of Zaretsky in P. I. Tchaikovsky’s opera, “Eugene Onegin”.

In the fall of the same year, Fyodor Ivanovich moved to Ufa and joined the choir of the operetta troupe of S. Ya. Semenov-Samarsky. In S. Monyushko’s opera “Pebble,” 17-year-old Chaliapin replaced the ill artist. This debut brought him fame in a narrow circle.

In 1893, Chaliapin became a member of G. I. Derkach’s troupe and moved to Tiflis. There he met the opera singer D. Usatov. On the advice of an older comrade, Chaliapin took his voice seriously. It was in Tiflis that Chaliapin performed his first bass parts.

In 1893, Chaliapin moved to Moscow. A year later he moved to St. Petersburg and joined the opera troupe of M. V. Lentovsky. Winter 1894-1895 joined the troupe of I.P. Zazulin.

In 1895, Chaliapin was invited to join the St. Petersburg opera troupe. On the stage of the Mariinsky Theater, Chaliapin performed in the roles of Mephistopheles and Ruslan.

Creative takeoff

Studying the short biography of Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin, you should know that in 1899 he first appeared on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. In 1901, the artist performed the role of Mephistopheles at the La Scala theater in Milan. His performance was very popular with European audiences and critics.

During the revolution, the artist performed folk songs and donated his fees to the workers. In 1907-1908 His tour began in the United States of America and Argentina.

In 1915, Chaliapin made his film debut, playing the title role in the film “Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible.”

In 1918, Chaliapin took charge of the former Mariinsky Theater. In the same year he was awarded the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

Abroad

In July 1922, Chaliapin went on tour to the USA. This fact in itself deeply worried the new government. And when in 1927 the artist donated his fee to the children of political emigrants, this was regarded as a betrayal of Soviet ideals.

Against this background, in 1927, Fyodor Ivanovich was deprived of the title of People's Artist and was forbidden to return to his homeland. All charges against the great artist were dropped only in 1991.

In 1932, the artist played the title role in the film “The Adventures of Don Quixote.”

last years of life

In 1937, F.I. Chaliapin was diagnosed with leukemia. The great artist passed away a year later, on April 12, 1938. In 1984, thanks to Baron E. A. von Falz-Fein, Chaliapin’s ashes were delivered to Russia.

The reburial ceremony of the outstanding singer took place on October 29, 1984, at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Other biography options

• There were many interesting and funny facts in the life of F.I. Chaliapin. In his youth, he auditioned for the same choir together with M. Gorky. The choir leaders “rejected” Chaliapin due to a mutation in his voice, preferring him to an arrogant competitor. Chaliapin retained his resentment for his much less talented competitor for the rest of his life.
• Having met M. Gorky, he told him this story. The surprised writer, laughing cheerfully, admitted that it was he who was a competitor in the choir, who was soon kicked out due to lack of a voice.
• The stage debut of young Chaliapin was quite original. At that time he was the main extra, and at the premiere of the play he performed in the silent role of the cardinal. The whole role consisted of a majestic procession across the stage. The cardinal's retinue was played by junior extras who were very worried. While rehearsing, Chaliapin ordered them to do everything on stage exactly as he did.
• Entering the stage, Fyodor Ivanovich became entangled in his robe and fell. Thinking that this was the right thing to do, the retinue did the same. This “heap of small things” crawled across the stage, making the tragic scene incredibly funny. For this, the enraged director lowered Chaliapin down the stairs.