Fedor Chaliapin: little-known facts and milestones of creativity. Attachments for Chaliapin Fedor Ivanovich

Opera and chamber singer
People's Artist of the Republic

Fedor Chaliapin was born on February 13, 1873 in Kazan in 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 council. Parents gave Fedya early to learn the craft of a shoemaker, and then a turner. Chaliapin also managed to arrange Fedya in the 6th city four-year school, which he graduated with a commendable diploma.

The characteristics that Chaliapin later gave to his father, Ivan Yakovlevich, and relatives are interesting: “My father was a strange person. Tall, with a hollow chest and trimmed beard, he did not look like a peasant. His hair was soft and always well combed, I have never seen such a beautiful haircut. I was pleased to stroke his hair in moments of our affectionate relationship. He wore a shirt made by his mother. Soft, with a turn-down collar and with a ribbon instead of a tie ... Over the shirt - a "pinzhak", on the legs - oiled 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 the father's relatives - his brother Dorimedon with his sons. Fedka was sent for vodka; for non-payment of taxes, cattle were stolen from someone, a samovar was taken away ...

Dorimedont Chaliapin had a powerful voice. Returning from the arable land in the evening, he would shout, it happened: “Wife, put the samovar on, I’m going home!” - so the whole district was heard. And his son Mikhey, Fyodor Ivanovich's cousin, also had a strong voice: he used to plow, but how he would bawl out or sing, so from one end of the field to the other, and then through the forest to the village you could hear everything.

Over the years, his father's drinking became more and more frequent, in a drunken frenzy, he beat his mother severely to an insensible state. Then the “ordinary life” began: the sober father again carefully went to the “Presence”, the mother spun yarn, sewed, repaired and washed clothes. At work, she always somehow especially sadly sang songs, thoughtfully and at the same time businesslike.

Outwardly, Avdotya Mikhailovna was an ordinary woman: small in stature, with a soft face, gray-eyed, with blond hair, always neatly combed - and so modest, hardly noticeable. 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 buzz of the spindles began to sing mournful songs about white fluffy snows, about girlish longing and about a splinter, complaining that it was burning indistinctly. And she was really on fire. Under the sad words of the song, my soul quietly dreamed about something, I ... raced through the fields among the fluffy snows ... ".

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

Here is another story of Fyodor Ivanovich about his childhood: “I remember myself for five years. On a dark autumn evening, I am sitting on the floor of the miller Tikhon Karpovich in the village of Ometeva near Kazan, behind the Cloth Sloboda. The miller's wife, Kirillovna, my mother, and two or three neighbors are spinning yarn in a semi-dark room, illuminated by the uneven, dim light of a torch. A torch is stuck in an iron holder - a light; 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 rustles outside the windows; the wind sighs in the chimney.

Women are spinning, quietly telling each other terrible stories about how the dead, their husbands, fly to the 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 as a sparrow, and then turn into a beloved, for whom a woman yearns.

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

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

A fiery serpent flew to a widow from a neighboring village for a long time, so that the widow began to dry and think. Neighbors noticed this; found out what was the matter, and ordered her to break the baubles in the forest and use them to cross all the doors and windows and every crack, where there is one. So she did, listening to good people. Here a snake has flown in, but it cannot get into the hut. He turned from evil into a fiery horse, and kicked the gate so hard that he knocked down a whole cloth ...

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

Following the stories, the women, to the buzz of the spindles, began to sing mournful songs about white fluffy snows, about girlish longing and about a splinter, complaining that it was not clearly burning. And she was really on fire. Under the sad words of the song, my soul quietly dreamed of something, I flew over the earth on a fiery horse, raced through the fields among the fluffy snows, imagined God, how he releases the sun from a golden cage into the expanse of the blue sky - a fiery bird.

I was filled with special joy by round dances, which were held twice a year: for the Semik and for the Savior.

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 tread, the outfits, the festive faces of people - everything painted some other 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, there was ice. My father slipped, fell and sprained his leg. Somehow they got home, - the mother fell into despair:

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

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

Let him send someone to make sure I'm really sick! Drive away, devils, perhaps ...

I already understood that if my father was expelled from the service, our situation would be terrible, even go to 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 uttered the word:

Get kicked out of service!

Mother invited healers, important and terrible people, they kneaded father's leg, rubbed it with some kind of murderous odorous drugs, even, I remember, burned it with fire. But still, the 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 work, we moved to the city on Rybnoryadskaya Street to Lisitsyn’s house, in which my father and mother had lived before, and where I was born in 1873.

I did not like the noisy, dirty life of the city. We were all placed in one room - mother, father, me and little brother and sister. I was then six or seven years old. Mother went to day labor - to wash floors, wash clothes, and locked me with the little ones in a room for the whole day from morning to evening. We lived in a wooden hut and - if there was a fire - locked up, we would burn. But still, I managed to put a part of the frame in the window, all three of us got out of the room and ran along the street, not forgetting to return home at a certain hour.

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

In the evening, without fire, it was terrible in the locked room; I felt especially bad when I recalled the terrible tales and gloomy stories of Kirillovna, it always seemed that Baba Yaga and kikimora were about to appear. Despite the heat, we all huddled under the covers and lay in silence, afraid to stick our heads out, suffocating. And when one of the three coughed or sighed, we said to each other:

Don't breathe, be quiet!

There was a muffled noise in the yard, cautious rustlings behind the door ... I was terribly happy when I heard my mother's hands confidently and calmly unlock the door lock. This door opened into a semi-dark corridor, which was the "back door" to the apartment of some general's wife. Once, meeting me in the corridor, the general's wife spoke to me affectionately about something and then asked if 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 rather quickly, to the pleasure of the general's wife, and she began to force me to read aloud to her in the evenings.

Soon the tale of Bova Korolevich fell into my hands - I was very struck that Bova could simply kill and disperse a hundred thousandth army with a broom. “Good guy! I thought. “That’s how it is for me!” 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, at Christmas time or at Easter, I first saw the buffoon Yashka in the booth. Yakov Mamonov was at that time famous throughout the Volga as a "clown" and "oil day".

Fascinated by the artist of the street, I stood in front of the booth until my legs stiffened, and my eyes rippled from the variegation of the clothes of the booth-makers.

This is the happiness of being such a person as Yashka! I dreamed.

All his artists seemed to me people full of inexhaustible joy; people who like to clown around, joke and laugh. More than once I saw that when they climb out onto the terrace of the booth, steam rises from them, like from samovars, and, of course, it never occurred to me that this sweat evaporates, caused by diabolical labor, excruciating muscle tension. I can’t say with complete certainty that it was Yakov Mamonov who gave the first impetus, which imperceptibly awakened in my soul an inclination towards the life of an artist, but perhaps it was to this person who gave himself to the amusement of the crowd that I owe my early interest in the theater , to a "representation" so unlike reality.

I soon learned that Mamonov was a shoemaker, and that for the first time he began to "represent" with his wife, son and students of his workshop, of which he made up his first troupe. This bribed me even more in his favor - not everyone can get out of the basement and go up to the booth! I spent whole days near the booth and was terribly sorry when Great Lent came, Easter and Fomin's week passed - then the orphan square, and the canvas from the booths were removed, thin wooden ribs were exposed, and there were no people on the trampled snow, covered with sunflower husks, walnut shells , pieces of paper from cheap sweets. The holiday disappeared like a dream. Until recently, everything here lived noisily and cheerfully, but now the square is like a cemetery without graves and crosses.

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

Once I, who rarely went to church, played on a Saturday evening near the church of St. Varlaamia went into it. It was all night. From the threshold I heard harmonious singing. He squeezed closer to the singers - men and boys sang in the kliros. I noticed that the boys were holding scribbled sheets of paper in their hands; I have already heard that there are notes for singing, and even somewhere I saw this ruled paper with black squiggles, which, in my opinion, was impossible to understand. But here I noticed something completely inaccessible to reason: the boys were holding in their hands, although graphed, but completely clean paper, without black squiggles. I had to think a lot before I figured out that the musical notation was placed on the side of the paper that faces the singers. I heard choral singing for the first time, and I liked it very much.

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

Pull the bow!

I diligently "pulled out" a few notes behind the violin, then the regent said: - There is a voice, there is a hearing. I'll write you notes - learn!

He wrote a scale on paper rulers, explained to me what sharp, flat and keys are. All this immediately interested me. I quickly comprehended the wisdom, and after two vigils I was already distributing notes to the chanters according to the keys. My mother was terribly happy about my success, my father remained indifferent, but nevertheless expressed the hope that if I sang well, then maybe I could earn at least a ruble a month to 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 sleeveless dressing gown, a lionfish, wore a robber's hat on his head and was not very talkative. But despite all his nobility, he drank as desperately as all the inhabitants of the Sukonnaya Sloboda, and since he served as a scribe in the district court, the 20th was fatal for him. In the Cloth Sloboda, more than in other parts of the city, after the 20th people became pitiful, unhappy and insane, making a desperate mess with the participation of all the elements, and the whole supply of swearing. I felt sorry for the regent, and when I saw him wildly drunk, my soul ached for him.

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

So, once during the mass, Pankratiev asked me - would I like to go to the theater? He has an extra ticket of 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 into the street. There is hardly anything that could be done in this house that would be interesting to me.

And what will be there? I asked.

- "Russian wedding" - daytime performance.

Wedding? I sang so often at weddings that this ceremony could no longer arouse my curiosity. Had a French wedding, that's more interesting. But still I bought a ticket from Pankratiev, although not very willingly.

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

I looked with amazement into the huge well, surrounded by semicircular places along the walls, at its dark bottom, set in rows of chairs, among which people were spreading. The gas was burning, and the smell of it remained for me the most pleasant smell for the rest of my life. A picture was painted on the curtain: “A green oak, a golden chain on that oak” and “a scientist cat keeps walking around the chain” - Medvedev's curtain. The orchestra played. Suddenly the curtain trembled, rose, and I was immediately stunned, enchanted. A tale vaguely familiar to me came to life before me. Magnificently 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, looked at these miracles.

The curtain fell, and I stood there, fascinated by a waking dream, which I had never seen, but always waited for it, I still wait for it. People were shouting, pushing me, leaving and coming back again, but I kept standing. And when the performance ended, they began to put out the fire, I felt sad. I couldn't believe that this life was over.

My hands and feet were numb. I remember that I was staggering when I went out into the street. I realized that the theater is incomparably more interesting than the booth of Yashka Mamonov. It was strange to see that it was daylight outside and that the 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 along the deserted streets, seeing, as if through a dream, how rare lanterns wink at each other, I stopped on the sidewalks, recalled the magnificent speeches of the actors, recited, imitating the facial expressions and gestures of each.

I am a queen, but a woman and a mother! - I proclaimed 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 did not understand why in the theater people talk about love beautifully, sublimely and purely, while in the Cloth Sloboda love is a dirty, obscene thing that arouses evil ridicule? On the stage, love causes feats, but in ours - scuffles. What are two loves? One is considered the highest happiness of life, and the other is debauchery and sin? Of course, at that time I did not really think 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 theatre, he wouldn't let me. He said:

You have to 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 brute! What's good about theater? You didn’t want to be a craftsman and you will rot in prison. The artisans look like they live full, dressed, shod.

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

After all, I work, rewrite papers, - I said. How much have you written...

He threatened me: If you finish studying, I'll harness you to work! So you know, loafer!

A visit to the theater decided the fate of Fyodor Chaliapin. Very young, he wanted to perform in the Serebryakova 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 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, as I read in a letter about your stay in Kazan. How before my eyes grew in my memory this most beautiful (for me, of course) of all cities in the world - a city! I remembered my varied life in it, happiness and misfortune ... and almost cried, stopping my imagination at the expensive Kazan City Theater ... ".

On December 30, 1890, Fyodor Chaliapin sang the solo part for the first time in Ufa. He told about this event: “Apparently, even in the modest role of a chorister, I managed to show my natural musicality and good voice means. 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 "Galka", and there was no one in the troupe to replace him, the entrepreneur Semyonov-Samarsky turned to me - would I 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 down on the stage past a chair), Semyonov-Samarsky was nevertheless moved both by my singing and by my conscientious desire to portray something similar to a Polish magnate. He added five rubles to my salary and also began to entrust me with other roles. I still think superstitiously: a good sign for a beginner in the first performance on stage in front of an audience is to sit past the chair. Throughout my subsequent career, however, I vigilantly watched 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 Il trovatore 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 the singer Dmitry Usatov, performed in amateur and student concerts. In 1894, he sang in performances that took place in the St. Petersburg suburban garden "Arcadia", then in the Panaevsky Theater. On April 5, 1895, Fyodor made his debut as Mephistopheles in Charles Gounod's Faust at the Mariinsky Theatre.

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 Pskovite Woman by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , Dosifey in "Khovanshchina" and Boris Godunov in the opera of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky. “One great artist has become more,” V. Stasov wrote about the twenty-five-year-old Chaliapin.

Chaliapin as Tsar Boris Godunov.

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

Chaliapin, having decided to stage Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Maid of Pskov, said: “To find the face of Grozny, I went to the Tretyakov Gallery to see paintings by Schwartz, Repin, sculpture by Antokolsky ... Someone told me that engineer Chokolov has a portrait of Grozny by Viktor Vasnetsov . It seems that this portrait is still unknown to the general public. He made a big impression on me. On it, the face of the Terrible is depicted in three quarters. The king with a fiery dark eye looks somewhere to the side. From the combination of everything that Repin, Vasnetsov and Schwartz gave me, I made a rather successful make-up, a figure that, in my opinion, is correct.

The premiere of the opera took place at the Mammoth Theater on December 12, 1896. Terrible was sung by Fyodor Chaliapin. The scenery and costumes for the performance were made according to sketches by Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. "Pskovityanka" blew up Moscow, went with full fees. “The main decoration of the performance was Chaliapin, who played the role of the Terrible. He created a very characteristic figure, ”critic Nikolai Kashkin admired.

“Pskovityanka” brought me closer to Viktor Vasnetsov, who generally had a cordial disposition for me, ”said Chaliapin. Vasnetsov invited the artist to his home, on Meshchanskaya Street. The singer was delighted with his house, cut down from large thick logs, simple oak benches, a table, stools. “I was pleased in such an environment,” Chaliapin continued, “to hear Vasnetsov warmly praise the image of Ivan the Terrible I created, which he painted descending from the stairs in mittens and with a staff.”

Chaliapin and Vasnetsov became friends. Viktor Mikhailovich sincerely recalled his childhood and youth in Vyatka. Chaliapin told his friend about his sad, restless wanderings around Russia, about the impoverished wandering life of the artist. Once Fyodor Ivanovich shared his thoughts about the role of Melnik in Dargomyzhsky's opera "Mermaid", in which he was supposed to perform soon at the Mammoth Theater. An artist interested in this made a sketch of the costume and make-up for the role of Miller. In it, he conveyed the sedateness, slyness, good nature, graspingness of Melnik. This is how Fyodor Chaliapin portrayed him on stage.

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

When in 1902 Chaliapin rehearsed the role of Farlaf in Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila, at his request, Viktor Mikhailovich made a sketch of the costume and make-up: 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 unbridled boastfulness and narcissism to them. In this role, the artist had a resounding, colossal success. “In my glorious and great countryman, his genius is dear and valuable to me, charming for all of us,” said Viktor Mikhailovich.

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

Communication in the Mammoth 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 to create a convincing stage image. The singer prepared a number of opera parts 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 deeply national art of the singer delighted his contemporaries. “In Russian art, Chaliapin is an era, like Pushkin,” wrote Gorky. Based 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 opera art - dramatic and musical, to subordinate his tragic gift, unique stage plasticity and deep musicality to a single artistic concept. "The sculptor of the operatic gesture", - this is how the music critic B. Asafiev called the singer.

From September 24, 1899, Chaliapin became the leading soloist of the Bolshoi and at the same time the Mariinsky Theater, toured abroad with triumphant success. In 1901, in Milan's La Scala, he sang with great success the part of Mephistopheles in the opera of the same name by A. Boito with Enrico Caruso, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. 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 from 1913. to 1914. The divine beauty of Chaliapin's voice captivated listeners of all countries. His high bass, delivered by nature, with a velvety soft timbre, sounded full-blooded, powerful and had 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 ... Mephistopheles himself looks at me with all the pricklyness of his features and satanic mind, with all its diabolical malice and mysterious innuendo. Mephistopheles himself, I repeat. Not the grinning vulgar that, together with a disappointed hairdresser, wanders in vain on the stage and sings badly to the conductor's baton - no, a real devil, from whom horror emanates.

... And the queen herself
And to her ladies-in-waiting
There was no urine from fleas,
There was no more life. Haha!

And they're 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.

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, squinting incredulously, secretly looking for the stranger's treacherous tail, choke on beer, smile pleasantly, slip out of the cellar one by one 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 fat body of Frau Margarita, mysteriously, with apprehension they whisper to her: “You know, my dear, today I seem to have seen the devil” ...

What else to say? Is it only for us to joke at the end of the story together with Chaliapin. As Chekhov wrote: “A person does not understand a joke - write wasted! And you know: this is not a real mind, be a man of at least seven spans in the forehead.

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

- Fedor Ivanovich, I need your costume for rent, in which you sang Mephistopheles. Don't worry, I'll pay you!

Chaliapin stands in a theatrical pose, draws air into his lungs and sings:

- Flea caftan ?! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

The effect of artistic transformation amazed the listeners in the singer, and the singer struck not only with his external appearance (Chaliapin paid special attention to makeup, costume, plasticity, 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 a versatile talent of the great artist was reminiscent of the masters of the Renaissance. Contemporaries compared his opera heroes with Michelangelo's titans.

The art of Chaliapin crossed national borders and influenced the development of the world opera house. Many Western conductors, artists and singers could repeat the words of the Italian conductor and composer D. Gavazeni: “Chaliapin’s innovation in the sphere of dramatic truth of opera 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 areas of performance of Russian operas by Italian singers, but also in general on the whole style of their vocal and stage interpretation, including works by Verdi...”.

Moscow changed Chaliapin's life completely and irrevocably. Here Fedor Ivanovich also met his future wife, the Italian ballerina Iola Lo-Presti, who performed under the pseudonym Tornagi. Desperately in love, the singer confessed his feelings in the most original way. At the rehearsal of "Eugene Onegin" in Gremin's aria, the words suddenly sounded: "Onegin, I swear on the sword, I am madly in love with Tornagi!" Iola at that moment was sitting in the hall.

Chaliapin and Iola Tornaghi.

“In the summer of 1898,” Chaliapin recalled, “I got married to the ballerina Tornagi in a small rural church. After the wedding, we had some kind of funny Turkish feast: we sat on the floor, on carpets and played naughty like little guys. 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 six o'clock, an infernal noise erupted at the window of my room - a crowd of friends headed by S.I. Mamontov performed a concert on stove views, iron dampers, buckets and some shrill whistles. It reminded me a bit of Cloth Sloboda.

"What the hell are you doing here?" shouted Mamontov. “They don’t come to the village to sleep!” Get up, let's go to the forest for mushrooms. And don't forget the wine!

And again they pounded on the shutters, whistled, yelled. And this irrepressible mess was conducted by S. V. Rakhmaninov.”

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

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

Here 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 clean 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 charitable purposes. 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 Vozhgalakh (Vyatka province and district) - 1800 rubles.

The following story is known. The wartime of 1914 caught Chaliapin outside of Russia, in Brittany. Muscovites who returned from Brittany spoke about the wonderful, marvelous daytime concert that Chaliapin gave there in the open air on the beach. The weather was amazing. Chaliapin, among others, walked along the shore, waiting for fresh newspapers. Suddenly, "camlots" with flyers appeared:

- Russian victory in East Prussia!!!

Chaliapin bared his head. The whole crowd followed suit. Suddenly, the sounds of a unique, powerful Chaliapin's voice were heard. He sang a lot and willingly, and then he took his hat and began to collect in favor of the wounded. They gave generously. Chaliapin sent this money to the needs of the front.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Fyodor Chaliapin was engaged in the creative reconstruction of the former imperial theaters, was an elected member of the directorates of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, and in 1918 directed the artistic part of the Mariinsky Theater. In the same year, he was the first of the artists 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 my life, then only an actor and a singer, I was completely devoted to my vocation. But least of all I was a politician.”

Outwardly, it might seem that Chaliapin's life was prosperous and creatively saturated. He was invited to perform at official concerts, he performed a lot for the general public, he was awarded honorary titles, asked to head the work of various kinds of artistic juries, theater councils. But then there were sharp calls to "socialize Chaliapin", "put his talent at the service of the people", doubts were often expressed about the "class loyalty" of the singer. Someone demanded the obligatory involvement of his family in the performance of labor service, someone made direct threats to the former artist of the imperial theaters ... “I saw more and more clearly that no one needs what I can do, that there is no point in my work no," the artist admitted. 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 the listeners, invented a way to win the artist over to their side. Especially for Chaliapin in 1918, the title of "People's Artist of the Republic" was established. 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 the wife's two girls from her first marriage. Iola, who did not give a divorce, and his five older children remained in Moscow. And he rushed between two cities and two beloved women.

On June 29, 1922, Fedor Ivanovich Chaliapin left Russia for emigration, officially on tour. The decision to leave Russia did not come to Chaliapin immediately. 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 fulfilling this dream. I became convinced that abroad I can live more calmly, more independently, without giving anyone any reports of anything, without asking, as a student of the preparatory class, whether it is possible to go out or not ...

Living abroad alone, without a beloved family, was not conceivable to me, and traveling with the whole family was, of course, more difficult - would they be allowed? And here - I confess - I decided to prevaricate. I began to develop the idea that my appearances abroad were of benefit to the Soviet government and made it a great advertisement. “Here, they say, what kind of artists live and prosper in the “councils!” I didn't think of 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 either in soul or body, that the Lord God created me like that, long before Bolshevism. I just thumped it into my profit.

My idea was taken, however, seriously and very favorably. Soon in my pocket lay the cherished permission for me to go 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 trouble in Moscow and therefore turned to Felix Dzerzhinsky with a request not to make 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 attentively and said: - "Good."

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

When the steamer moved, from the stern of which I, taking off my hat, waved it and bowed to it - 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 clear waters of the Tsaritsa-Neva, the imaginary Bolshevik Fedor Chaliapin melted forever.

Visiting the artist I. Repin in Penaty.

In the spring of 1922, Chaliapin did not return from foreign tours, although for some time he continued to consider his non-return to be temporary. The home environment played a significant role in what happened. Caring for children, the fear of leaving them without means of subsistence forced Fedor Ivanovich to agree to endless tours. The eldest daughter Irina remained to live in Moscow with her husband and mother, Paula Ignatievna Tornagi-Chaliapina. Other children from the first marriage - Lydia, Boris, Fedor, Tatyana and children from the second marriage - Marina, Martha, 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 Fedor and Boris, 1928

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

Boris Chaliapin. Fedor Ivanovich Chaliapin, 1934.

But even later, the singer repeatedly asked himself the question, why did he leave 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 beach near a small cafe. There were big trees all around. Chaliapin spoke:

Listen, now we are sitting with you by these trees, the birds are singing, it is 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 he can't explain anything. Even though he pretends to know something. And I'm starting to feel like he doesn't know anything. This international movement can embrace everyone. I bought from different places in the house. Might have to run again.

Chaliapin spoke preoccupiedly, 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 must be treated as soon as possible. Yearning...".

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

- Once, - said Alexander Vertinsky, - we were sitting with Chaliapin in a tavern after his concert. After supper, 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.

“Very well,” he said, “I will pay ten crowns. But I'll take a tablecloth with me.

The hostess brought a tablecloth and received the money, but while we were waiting for the car, she was already explained what was the matter.

“Fool,” one of her friends told her, “you should frame this tablecloth under glass and hang it in the hall as proof that you had Chaliapin. And everyone would go to you and watch.

The hostess returned to us and extended 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 it back... fifty crowns!

The hostess paid the money and took the tablecloth.

Chaliapin's repertoire included about 70 parts. In the operas of Russian composers, he created the images of Melnik in the production of "The Mermaid", 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 "Pskovite". Among his best performances in Western European opera were Mephistopheles in Faust and Mephistopheles, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Leporello in Don Giovanni and Don Quixote in 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 vocal music. Among his masterpieces of performing arts are "Bloch", "Forgotten", "Trepak" by Mussorgsky, "Night Review" by Glinka, "The Prophet" by Rimsky-Korsakov, "Two Grenadiers" by R. Schumann, "Double" by F. Schubert, as well as Russian folk songs "Farewell, joy", "They do not order Masha to go beyond the river", "Because of the island to the rod". In the 1920s and 1930s he made about 300 recordings. “I love gramophone records ... - Fedor Ivanovich admitted. “I am excited and creatively excited by the idea that the microphone symbolizes not some particular audience, but millions of listeners.” The singer himself was very picky about recordings, among his favorites is the recording of Massenet's "Elegy", Russian folk songs, which he included in his concert programs throughout his creative life. According to Asafiev’s memoirs: “The wide, powerful, inexhaustible breath of the great singer sated the melody, and, it was heard, 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, which was already rumored in the spring of 1927: "The title of" people's artist "given to you by the Council of People's Commissars, only the Council of People's Commissars can be canceled, which he did not do, yes, of course and won't do it." However, in reality, everything did not happen at all as Gorky expected ... Commenting on the decision of the Council of People's Commissars, Lunacharsky resolutely brushed aside the political background, arguing that “the only motive for depriving Chaliapin of his title was his stubborn unwillingness to come at least for a short time to his homeland and artistically serve the 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 countries of Europe, and mainly in America, my material affairs were in excellent condition. Having left Russia a few years ago as a beggar, I can now arrange for myself a good house, furnished according to my own taste. I recently moved into this new home of mine. According to my old upbringing, I wished to treat this pleasant event religiously and arrange a prayer service in my apartment. I am not such a religious person to believe that for the served prayer service, the Lord God will strengthen the roof of my house and send me a grace-filled life in a new home. But I, in any case, felt the Need to thank the Higher Being familiar to our consciousness, which we call God, and in essence we don’t even know whether it exists or not. There is some pleasure in being grateful. With these thoughts I went for the priest. My friend went with me alone. It was summer. We went to the churchyard... we went to the dearest, most educated and touching priest, Father Georgy Spassky. I invited him to come to my house for a prayer service... As I was leaving Father Spassky's, some women approached me at the very porch of his house, ragged, ragged, with the same ragged and disheveled children. These children stood on crooked legs and were covered with scabs. Women asked to give them something for bread. But there was such an accident that neither I nor my friend had any money. It was so embarrassing to tell these unfortunates that I had no money. This disturbed the joyful mood with which I left the priest. That night I felt disgusting.

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

“And the despot feasts in a luxurious palace,
Anxiety pouring wine ... "

My heart was really worried. God will not accept my gratitude, and whether this prayer was needed at all, I thought. I thought about yesterday's incident in the churchyard and casually answered the guests' questions. It is certainly possible to help these two women. But are there only two or four? Must be a lot. And so I stood up and said:

Father, yesterday I saw unfortunate women and children in the churchyard. There are probably a lot of them near the church, and you know them. Let me offer you 5,000 francs. Distribute them, please, at your discretion.

In Soviet newspapers, the act of the artist was regarded as helping the white emigration. However, in the USSR they did not abandon attempts to return Chaliapin. In the autumn of 1928, Gorky wrote to Fyodor Ivanovich from Sorrento: “They say you will 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 the 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. Here 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. Alexei Maksimovich and Maxim told a lot of interesting things about the Soviet Union, answered a lot of questions, in conclusion, Alexei Maksimovich told Fyodor Ivanovich: “Go home, look at the construction of a new life, at new people, their interest in you is huge, seeing you will want to stay there, I'm sure." At that moment, Chaliapin's wife, who was silently listening, suddenly declared decisively, turning to Fyodor Ivanovich: "You will go to the Soviet Union only over my corpse." Everyone's mood dropped, they quickly got ready to go home.

Chaliapin and Maxim Gorky.

Chaliapin and Gorky did not meet again. Chaliapin saw that the cruel time of growing mass repressions breaks many destinies, he did not want to become either a voluntary victim, or a herald of Stalin's wisdom, or a werewolf, or a singer of the leader of the peoples.

In 1930, a scandal erupted over the publication of "Pages from my life" in the publishing house "Priboy", for which Chaliapin demanded payment of royalties. This was the reason for Gorky's last letter, written in a harsh, insulting tone. Chaliapin took the break in relations with Gorky hard. “I lost my best friend,” said the artist.

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

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

Far from home, for Chaliapin, meetings with Russians - Korovin, Rachmaninov and Anna Pavlova were especially dear. Chaliapin was acquainted with Toti Dal Monte, Maurice Ravel, Charlie Chaplin and HG 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 Rachmaninoff.

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

The news of the illness of the great artist was leaked to the press. At the door of Chaliapin's mansion, journalists were on duty day and night; on all channels of French and English radio, the final aria of the dying Boris Godunov sounded in his performance. 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 on a stage: death is playing! On April 12, 1938, before his death, Chaliapin fell into oblivion and insistently demanded: “Give me water! Throat is very dry. You have to drink water. After all, the audience is waiting. We must sing. The public must not be fooled! They paid…” Many years later, Dr. Gendron confessed: "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's millions". The daughter of the great Russian singer, drama artist Irina Feodorovna, wrote in her memoirs: “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 starvation." Yes, my father, of course, had money earned by great work. But he knew how to spend them - 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 ashes of the singer were transported to Moscow and buried on October 29, 1984 at the Novodevichy cemetery.

In 1991, the title of "People's Artist of the Republic" was returned to him.

A television program from the cycle “More Than Love” was filmed about the relationship between Fyodor Chaliapin and Iola Tornaga.

In 1992, a documentary film "The Great Chaliapin" was filmed about Fedor Chaliapin.

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The text was prepared by Tatyana Khalina

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-catalog from the funds of the State Central Theater Museum named after A.I. A.A. Bakhrushina
Site materials www.shalyapin-museum.org
Igor Pound on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the birth of F.I. Chaliapin

Russian opera and chamber singer (high bass).
First People's Artist of the Republic (1918-1927, the title was returned in 1991).

The son of a peasant in the Vyatka province Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin (1837-1901), a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of the Chaliapins (Shelepins). Chaliapin's mother is a peasant woman from the village of Dudintsy, Kumensky volost (Kumensky district of the Kirov region), Evdokia Mikhailovna (nee Prozorova).
As a child, Fedor was a singer. As a boy, he was sent to study shoemaking to shoemakers N.A. Tonkov, then V.A. Andreev. He received his primary education at Vedernikova's private school, then at the Fourth Parish School in Kazan, and later at the Sixth Primary School.

Chaliapin himself considered the beginning of his artistic career in 1889, when he entered the drama troupe of V.B. Serebryakova, first as an extra.

On March 29, 1890, the first solo performance took place - the part of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin", staged by the Kazan Society of Performing Art Lovers. Throughout May and the beginning of June 1890, he was the chorister of the operetta entreprise V.B. Serebryakova. In September 1890, he arrived from Kazan in Ufa and began working in the choir of the operetta troupe under the direction of S.Ya. Semyonov-Samarsky.
Quite by chance, I had to transform from a chorister into a soloist, replacing the sick artist in Moniuszko's opera "Pebbles" in the role of Stolnik.
This debut brought forward a 17-year-old boy who was occasionally entrusted with small operatic roles, such as Ferrando in Il trovatore. The following year, he 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 Derkach arrived in Ufa, to which Chaliapin joined. Wanderings with her brought him to Tiflis, where for the first time he managed to seriously take up 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 means, began to give him singing lessons for free and generally took a great part in it. He also arranged Chaliapin in the Tiflis opera of Ludwigov-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 the Lentovsky Opera Company, and in the winter of 1894-1895. - in the opera partnership at the Panaevsky Theater, in the troupe of Zazulin. The beautiful voice of the novice artist, and especially the expressive musical recitation in connection with the truthful play, drew the attention of critics and the public to him.
In 1895, he 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 parts of Mephistopheles (Faust) and Ruslan (Ruslan and Lyudmila). The diverse talent of Chaliapin was also expressed in the comic opera The Secret Marriage by D. Cimarosa, but still did not receive due appreciation. It is reported that in the 1895-1896 season he "appeared quite rarely and, moreover, in parties that were not very suitable for him." Well-known philanthropist S.I. Mamontov, who at that time held an opera house in Moscow, was the first to notice an extraordinary talent in Chaliapin and persuaded him to join his private troupe. Here, in 1896-1899, Chaliapin developed in the artistic sense and developed his stage talent, performing in a number of responsible roles. Thanks to his subtle understanding of Russian music in general and the latest in particular, he completely individually, but at the same time deeply truthfully created a number of significant images of Russian opera classics:
Ivan the Terrible in "Pskovityanka" by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov; Varangian guest in his own "Sadko"; Salieri in his own "Mozart and Salieri"; Melnik in "Mermaid" by A.S. Dargomyzhsky; Ivan Susanin in "Life for the Tsar" by M.I. Glinka; Boris Godunov in the opera of the same name by M.P. Mussorgsky, Dositheus in his own "Khovanshchina" and in many other operas.
At the same time, he worked hard on roles in foreign operas; so, for example, the role of Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust in his transmission received amazingly bright, strong and peculiar coverage. Over the years, Chaliapin has gained great fame.

Chaliapin was a soloist of the Russian Private Opera, created by S.I. Mamontov, for four seasons - from 1896 to 1899. In his autobiographical book "Mask and Soul", Chaliapin characterizes these years of his creative life as the most important: "I received from Mamontov the repertoire that gave me the opportunity to develop all the main features of my artistic nature, my temperament."

Since 1899, he was again in the service of the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow (Bolshoi Theatre), where he enjoyed tremendous 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 donated the proceeds from his speeches to the workers. His performances with folk songs ("Dubinushka" and others) sometimes turned into political demonstrations.
Since 1914, he has been performing in private opera entreprises of S.I. Zimina (Moscow), A.R. Aksarina (Petrograd).
In 1915, he made his film debut, the main role (Tsar Ivan the Terrible) in the historical film drama Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible (based on the drama of Leo Mei's The Maid of Pskov).

In 1917, in a production of G. Verdi's opera Don Carlos in Moscow, he performed not only as a soloist (Philip's part), but also as a director. His next directing experience was the opera "Mermaid" by A.S. Dargomyzhsky.

In 1918-1921 he was artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre.
Since 1922 - on tour abroad, in particular in the USA, where Solomon Yurok was his American impresario. The singer went there with his second wife, Maria Valentinovna.

The long absence of Chaliapin aroused suspicion and negative attitudes in Soviet Russia; so, in 1926 V.V. Mayakovsky wrote in his Letter to Gorky:
Or you live
How does Chaliapin live?
with stifled applause olyapan?
come back
Now
such an artist
back
to Russian rubles -
I'll be the first to shout
- Roll back
People's Artist of the Republic!

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 decree 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 artist title he was awarded” or, according to other sources, by the fact that he allegedly donated money to monarchist emigrants.

At the end of the summer of 1932, he played the main role in the film "Don Quixote" by the Austrian film director Georg Pabst based on the novel of the same name by Cervantes. The film was filmed immediately in two languages ​​- English and French, with two casts, the music for the film was written by Jacques Ibert. Filming on location took place near the city of Nice.
In 1935-1936, the singer went on his last tour to the Far East, giving 57 concerts in Manchuria, China and Japan. During the tour, Georges de Godzinsky was his accompanist. In the spring of 1937, he 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 Chaliapin Jr. achieved the reburial of his ashes in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

On June 10, 1991, 53 years after the death of Fyodor Chaliapin, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR adopted Resolution No. 317: "Repeal 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."

Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had 9 children (one died at an early age from appendicitis).
Fyodor Chaliapin met his first wife in Nizhny Novgorod, and they got married in 1898 in the church of the village of Gagino. It was a young Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi (Iola Ignatievna Le-Presti (based on the stage of Tornaghi), died in 1965 at the age of 92), who was born in the city of Monza (not far from Milan). In total, Chaliapin had six children in this marriage: Igor (died at the age of 4), Boris, Fedor, Tatyana, Irina, Lydia. Fedor and Tatyana were twins. Iola Tornaghi lived in Russia for a long time and only at the end of the 1950s, at the invitation of her son Fyodor, she moved to Rome.
Already having a family, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin becomes close to Maria Valentinovna Petzold (née Elukhen, in her first marriage - Petzold, 1882-1964), who had two of her children from her first marriage. They have three daughters: Marfa (1910-2003), Marina (1912-2009) and Dasia (1921-1977). Chaliapin's daughter Marina (Marina Fedorovna Chaliapin-Freddy), lived longer than all his children and died at the age of 98.
In fact, Chaliapin had a second family. The first marriage was not dissolved, and the second was not registered and was considered invalid. It turned out that Chaliapin had one family in the old capital, and another in the new one: one family did not go to St. Petersburg, and the other did not go to Moscow. Officially, the marriage of Maria Valentinovna with Chaliapin was formalized in 1927 already in Paris.

prizes and awards

1902 - Order of the Golden Star of Bukhara III degree.
1907 - Golden Cross of the Prussian Eagle.
1910 - the title of Soloist of His Majesty (Russia).
1912 - the title of Soloist of His Majesty the Italian King.
1913 - the title of Soloist of His Majesty the English King.
1914 - English order for special merit in the field of art.
1914 - Russian order of Stanislav III degree.
1925 - Commander of the Order of the Legion of Honor (France).

The great Russian singer Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin combined two qualities in his work: acting skills and unique vocal abilities. He was a soloist of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, as well as the Metropolitan Opera. One of the greatest opera singers.

The childhood of Fyodor Chaliapin

The future singer was born in Kazan on February 13, 1873. Fyodor Chaliapin's parents got married in January 1863, and 10 years later their son Fyodor was born.

My father worked as an archivist in the Zemstvo council. Fedor's mother, Evdokia Mikhailovna, was an ordinary peasant woman from the village of Dudintsy.

Already in childhood, it became clear that little Fedor had a musical talent. Possessing a beautiful treble, he sang in the suburban church choir and at village holidays. Later, the boy was invited to sing in neighboring churches. When Fedor graduated from the 4th grade with a commendable diploma, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, then to a turner.

At the age of 14, the boy began working as a clerk in the zemstvo council of the Kazan district. Earned 10 rubles a month. However, Chaliapin never forgot about music. Having learned to read music, Fedor tried to devote all his free time to music.

The beginning of the creative career of the singer Fyodor Chaliapin

In 1883, Fedor first came to the theater to stage the play by P.P. Sukhonin "Russian Wedding". Chaliapin "fell ill" with the theater and tried not to miss a single performance. Most of all, the boy liked the opera. And the greatest impression on the future singer was made by M. I. Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar. The father sends his son to the school to study as a carpenter, but when his mother fell ill, Fedor was forced to return to Kazan to look after her. It was in Kazan that Chaliapin began to try to get a job in the theater.

Finally, in 1889, he was accepted as an extra in the prestigious Serebryakov Choir. Prior to this, Chaliapin was not accepted into the choir, but they took some lanky, terribly rounded young man. A few years later, having met Maxim Gorky, Fedor told him about his first failure. Gorky chuckled and said that it was he who was this dumb young man, although he was quickly expelled from the choir due to the complete absence of his voice.

And the first performance of the extra-Chaliapin ended in failure. He was entrusted with a role without words. The cardinal played by Chaliapin, along with his retinue, had to simply walk across the stage. Fedor was very worried and constantly repeated to his retinue: “Do everything like me!”.

As soon as he entered the stage, Chaliapin got entangled in the red cardinal's robe and fell to the floor. The retinue, remembering the instructions, followed him. The cardinal could not get up and crawled across the stage. As soon as the creeping retinue headed by Chaliapin was behind the scenes, the director wholeheartedly kicked the “cardinal” and lowered him down the stairs!

Chaliapin performed his first solo role - the role of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin" in March 1890.

In September of the same year, Chaliapin moved to Ufa and began to sing in the local operetta troupe of Semenov-Samarsky. Gradually, Chaliapin began to entrust small roles in many performances. After the end of the season, Chaliapin joined Derkach's itinerant troupe, with whom he toured the cities of Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Life of Fyodor Chaliapin in Tiflis

As for many other great representatives of Russian literature and art, Tiflis played a very important role in the life of Chaliapin. Here he met a former artist of the Imperial Theaters, Professor Usatov. After listening to the singer, Usatov said: “Stay to learn from me. I won't take any money for my studies. Usatov not only "put" the voice of Chaliapin, but helped him financially. In 1893, Chaliapin made his debut on the stage of the Tiflis Opera House.

HEY FUCK! Russian folk song. Performed by: FYODOR SHALYAPIN.

A year later, all the bass parts in the Tiflis opera were performed by Chaliapin. It was in Tiflis that Chaliapin gained fame and recognition, and from a self-taught singer turned into a professional artist.

The heyday of creativity of Fyodor Chaliapin

In 1895, Fyodor Chaliapin arrived in Moscow, where he signed a contract with the directorate of the Mariinsky Theater. Initially, Fedor Ivanovich played only minor roles on the stage of the Imperial Theater.

The meeting with the famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov marked the beginning of the flowering of Chaliapin's work. Mamontov invited the singer to work at the Moscow Private Opera with a salary three times higher than the salary at the Mariinsky Theater.

Chaliapin's many-sided talent was truly revealed in the private opera, and the repertoire was replenished with many unforgettable images from the operas of Russian composers.

In 1899, Chaliapin was invited to the Bolshoi Theater, where he had a stunning success. The stage life of the singer turned into a grandiose triumph. He became everyone's favorite. The singer's contemporaries assessed his unique voice in this way: in Moscow there are three miracles - the Tsar Bell, the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bass - Fedor Chaliapin.

Fyodor Chaliapin. Elegy. Romance. Old Russian Romance.

Music critics wrote that, apparently, Russian composers of the 19th century “foresaw” the appearance of a great singer, which is why they wrote so many wonderful parts for bass: Ivan the Terrible, the Varangian Guest, Salieri, Melnik, Boris Godunov, Dosifey and Ivan Susanin. Largely thanks to the talent of Chaliapin, who included arias from Russian operas in his repertoire, the composers N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, A.S. Dargomyzhsky, M. Mussorgsky, M. Glinka received world recognition.

In the same years, the singer receives European fame. In 1900 he was invited to the famous Milanese La Scala. The amount that was paid to Chaliapin under the contract at that time was unheard of high. After a stay in Italy, the singer began to be invited on tour abroad every year. The world war of the revolution and the civil war in Russia for a long 6 years "put an end" to the singer's foreign tours. In the period from 1914 to 1920, Chaliapin did not leave Russia.

Emigration period

In 1922, Chaliapin went on tour in the United States. The singer never returned to the Soviet Union. At home, in turn, they decided to deprive Chaliapin of the title of People's Artist. The way to Russia was finally cut off.

Abroad, Chaliapin tries his hand at a new art - cinema. In 1933, he starred in the film "Don Quixote" directed by G. Pabst.

Fyodor Chaliapin's personal life

Fedor Chaliapin was married twice. The singer met his first wife, an Italian ballerina, Iona Tornaghi, in 1898 in Nizhny Novgorod. In this marriage, seven children were born at once.

Later, without terminating the first marriage, Chaliapin becomes close to Maria Petzold. The woman at that time already had two children from her first marriage. They met in secret for a long time. The marriage was officially registered only in 1927 in Paris.

Memory

Chaliapin died in the spring of 1938 in Paris. The great singer was buried at the Batignolles cemetery in Paris. Only almost half a century later, in 1984, his son Fyodor obtained permission to reburial his father's ashes in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery.

The repeated funeral was held with all honors.

And 57 years after the death of the artist, he was posthumously returned the title of People's Artist of the USSR.

So, finally, the singer returned to his homeland.

Russian opera and chamber singer Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was born on February 13 (February 1, old style), 1873 in Kazan. His father, Ivan Yakovlevich Chaliapin, came from the peasantry of the Vyatka province and served as a clerk in the Kazan district zemstvo council. In 1887, Fyodor Chaliapin was hired to the same position with a salary of 10 rubles a month. In his free time, Chaliapin sang in the bishop's choir, was fond of the theater (he participated as an extra in drama and opera performances).

Chaliapin's artistic career began in 1889 when he joined Serebryakov's drama troupe. On March 29, 1890, the first solo performance of Fyodor Chaliapin took place, who performed the part of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin", staged by the Kazan Society of Performing Art Lovers.

In September 1890, Chaliapin moved to Ufa, where he began working in the choir of an operetta troupe under the direction of Semyon Semyonov-Samarsky. By coincidence, Chaliapin had the opportunity to play the role of soloist in Moniuszko's opera "Pebbles", replacing the sick artist on stage. After that, Chaliapin began to entrust small opera parts, for example, Fernando in Il trovatore. Then the singer moved to Tbilisi, where he took free singing lessons from the famous singer Dmitry Usatov, performed in amateur and student concerts. In 1894, Chaliapin went to St. Petersburg, where he sang in performances that took place in the Arcadia country garden, then at the Panaevsky Theater. On April 5, 1895, he made his debut as Mephistopheles in Charles Gounod's Faust at the Mariinsky Theatre.

In 1896, Chaliapin was invited by patron 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 vivid images that have become classics: Ivan the Terrible in Nikolai Rimsky's The Maid of Pskov Korsakov (1896); Dositheus in "Khovanshchina" by Modest Mussorgsky (1897); Boris Godunov in the opera of the same name by Modest Mussorgsky (1898).

Since September 24, 1899, Chaliapin has been the leading soloist of the Bolshoi and at the same time the Mariinsky Theaters. In 1901, Chaliapin's triumphal tour of Italy took place (at the La Scala theater in Milan). Chaliapin was a member of the "Russian Seasons" abroad, hosted by Sergei Diaghilev.

During the First World War, Chaliapin's tours ceased. The singer opened two infirmaries for wounded soldiers at his own expense, donated large sums to charity. In 1915, Chaliapin made his film debut, where he played the main role in the historical film drama "Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible" (based on the work of Lev May "The Maid of Pskov").

After the October Revolution of 1917, Fyodor Chaliapin was engaged in the creative reconstruction of the former imperial theaters, was an elected member of the directorates of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theaters, and in 1918 directed the artistic part of the latter. In the same year, he was the first of the artists to be awarded the title of People's Artist of the Republic.

In 1922, having gone abroad on tour, Chaliapin did not return to the Soviet Union. In August 1927, by a decree 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 country.

At the end of the summer of 1932, Chaliapin played the title role in the film "Don Quixote" by the Austrian film director Georg Pabst based on the novel of the same name by Miguel Cervantes.

Fyodor Chaliapin was also an outstanding chamber singer - he performed Russian folk songs, romances, vocal works; He also acted as a director - staged the operas "Khovanshchina" and "Don Quixote". Peru Chaliapin owns the autobiography "Pages from my life" (1917) and the book "Mask and Soul" (1932).

Chaliapin was also a remarkable draftsman and tried his hand at painting. His works "Self-portrait", dozens of portraits, drawings, caricatures have been preserved.

In 1935 - 1936, the singer went on his last tour to the Far East, giving 57 concerts in Manchuria, China and Japan. In the spring of 1937, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and on April 12, 1938, he died in Paris. He was buried in the Batignolles cemetery in Paris. In 1984, the ashes of the singer were transported to Moscow and buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

On April 11, 1975, the first in Russia dedicated to his work was opened in St. Petersburg.

In 1982, an opera festival was founded in the homeland of Chaliapin in Kazan, which received the name of the great singer. The initiator of the creation of the forum was the director of the Tatar Opera House Raufal Mukhametzyanov. In 1985, the Chaliapin Festival received the status of an all-Russian one, and in 1991 it was released.

On June 10, 1991, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR adopted Resolution No. 317: "Repeal the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of August 24, 1927 "On depriving F. I. Chaliapin of the title of" People's Artist "as unreasonable."

On August 29, 1999, in Kazan, near the bell tower of the Epiphany Cathedral, in which Fyodor Chaliapin was baptized on February 2, 1873, the city authorities erected a monument dedicated to the singer by sculptor Andrei Balashov.

Fyodor Chaliapin's achievements and contribution to the art of opera were also noted in the USA, where the artist received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2003, on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow, next to the Fyodor Chaliapin House Museum, a monument about 2.5 meters high was erected in honor of the great artist. The author of the sculpture was Vadim Tserkovnikov.

Fyodor Chaliapin was the owner of a large number of various awards and titles. So, in 1902, the emir of Bukhara granted the singer the Order of the Golden Star of the third degree, in 1907, after a performance at the Berlin Royal Theater, Kaiser Wilhelm called the famous artist to his box and handed him the golden cross of the Prussian Eagle. In 1910, Chaliapin was awarded the title of Soloist of His Majesty, in 1934 in France he received the Order of the Legion of Honor.

Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had nine children (one died at an early age).

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

“The great Chaliapin was a reflection of the split Russian reality: a tramp and an aristocrat, a family man and a “runner”, a wanderer, a frequenter of restaurants ... ”- this is how his teacher said about the world-famous artist Dmitry Usatov. Despite all life circumstances, Fyodor Chaliapin forever entered the world opera history.

Vasily Shkafer as Mozart and Fyodor Chaliapin as Salieri in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri. 1898 Photo: RIA Novosti Fedor Ivanovich Chaliapin was born on February 13 (old style - February 1), 1873 in Kazan in a peasant family of immigrants from the Vyatka province. They lived in poverty, his father served as a clerk in the Zemstvo council, often drank, raised his hand to his wife and children, over the years his addiction worsened.

Fedor studied at Vedernikova's private school, but he was expelled for kissing a classmate. Then there was the parish and vocational school, the latter he left due to a serious illness of his mother. On this state education Chaliapin ended. Even before the school, Fedor was assigned to the godfather - to learn shoemaking. “But fate did not judge me to be a shoemaker,” the singer recalled.

Once Fedor heard choral singing in the church, and it fascinated him. He asked to join the choir, and the regent Shcherbinin accepted it. The 9-year-old Chaliapin had an ear and a beautiful voice - a treble, and the regent taught him musical notation and put a salary.

At the age of 12, Chaliapin first got into the theater - to the "Russian Wedding". From that moment on, the theater “drove Chaliapin crazy” and became his lifelong passion. Already in Parisian exile in 1932, he wrote: “Everything that I will remember and tell will ... be connected with my theatrical life. About people and phenomena ... I'm going to judge ... as an actor, from an actor's point of view ... ".

Actors of the opera performance "The Barber of Seville": V. Lossky, Karakash, Fyodor Chaliapin, A. Nezhdanova and Andrey Labinsky. 1913 Photo: RIA Novosti / Mikhail Ozersky

When the opera arrived in Kazan, she, according to Fyodor, amazed him. Chaliapin really wanted to look behind the scenes, and he made his way behind the stage. He was taken as an extra "for a nickel." The career of a great opera singer was still far away. Ahead were breaking voices, moving to Astrakhan, a hungry life and returning to Kazan.

Chaliapin's first solo performance, the part of Zaretsky in the opera Eugene Onegin, took place at the end of March 1890. In September, as a chorister, he moves to Ufa, where he transforms into a soloist, replacing a sick artist. The debut of the 17-year-old Chaliapin in the opera "Pebbles" was appreciated and occasionally entrusted him with small parts. But the theatrical season ended, and Chaliapin again found himself without work and without money. He played passing roles, wandered, and in desperation even thought about suicide.

Russian singer Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin as Tsar Ivan the Terrible on a poster for the Châtelet Theater in Paris. 1909 Photo: RIA Novosti / Sverdlov

Friends helped, who advised me to take lessons from Dmitry Usatov- In the past, an artist of the imperial theaters. Usatov not only taught him the famous operas, but also taught him the basics of etiquette. He introduced the newcomer to the music circle, and soon to the Lyubimov Opera, already under contract. Having successfully played over 60 performances, Chaliapin went to Moscow, and then to St. Petersburg. After the successful role of Mephistopheles in Faust, Chaliapin was invited to audition at the Mariinsky Theater and enrolled in the troupe for three years. Chaliapin receives the part of Ruslan in the opera Glinka"Ruslan and Lyudmila", but critics wrote that Chaliapin sang "badly", and he remains without roles for a long time.

But Chaliapin meets a famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov, who offers him a place as a soloist of the Russian Private Opera. In 1896, the artist moved to Moscow and performed successfully for four seasons, improving his repertoire and skills.

Since 1899, Chaliapin has been in the troupe of the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow and is a success with the public. He is enthusiastically received at the La Scala theater in Milan - where Chaliapin performed in the image of Mephistopheles. The success was amazing, offers began to pour in from all over the world. Chaliapin conquers Paris and London with Diaghilev, Germany, America, South America, and becomes a world famous artist.

In 1918, Chaliapin became the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater (while refusing the position of artistic director at the Bolshoi Theater) and received the first in Russia title of "People's Artist of the Republic".

Despite the fact that Chaliapin sympathized with the revolution from an early age, he and his family did not escape emigration. The new government confiscated the artist's house, car, bank savings. He tried to protect his family and the theater from attacks, met repeatedly with the leaders of the country, including Lenin And Stalin but that only helped temporarily.

In 1922, Chaliapin left Russia with his family, toured Europe and America. In 1927, the Council of People's Commissars deprives him of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to his homeland. According to one version, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from the concert to the children of emigrants, and in the USSR this gesture was regarded as support for the White Guards.

The Chaliapin family settles in Paris, and it is there that the opera singer will find his last refuge. After touring in China, Japan, and America, Chaliapin returned to Paris in May 1937 already sick. Doctors diagnose - leukemia.

“I’m lying ... in bed ... reading ... and remembering the past: theaters, cities, hardships and successes ... How many roles I played! And it doesn't seem bad. Here's a Vyatka little peasant for you ... ”, - Chaliapin wrote in December 1937 of his daughter Irina.

Ilya Repin paints a portrait of Fyodor Chaliapin. 1914 Photo: RIA Novosti

The great artist died on April 12, 1938. Chaliapin was buried in Paris, and only in 1984 did his son Fyodor achieve the reburial of his father's ashes in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery. In 1991, 53 years after his death, Fyodor Chaliapin was returned the title of People's Artist.

Fyodor Chaliapin made an invaluable contribution to the development of opera art. His repertoire includes over 50 roles in classical operas, over 400 songs, romances and Russian folk songs. In Russia, Chaliapin became famous for the bass parts of Borisov Godunov, Ivan the Terrible, Mephistopheles. Not only his magnificent voice delighted the audience. Chaliapin paid great attention to the stage image of his heroes: he reincarnated as them on stage.

Personal life

Fyodor Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had 9 children. With his first wife, an Italian ballerina Iola Tornagi- the singer meets at the Mamontov Theater. In 1898 they got married, and in this marriage Chaliapin had six children, one of whom died at an early age. After the revolution, Iola Tornaghi lived in Russia for a long time, and only at the end of the 50s she moved to Rome at the invitation of her son.

Fyodor Chaliapin at work on his sculptural self-portrait. 1912 Photo: RIA Novosti

Being married, in 1910 Fyodor Chaliapin became close to Maria Petzold who raised two children from her first marriage. The first marriage had not yet been dissolved, but in fact the singer had a second family in Petrograd. In this marriage, Chaliapin had three daughters, but the couple was able to formalize their relationship already in Paris in 1927. Fedor Chaliapin spent the last years of his life with Maria.

Fedor Ivanovich Chaliapin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for achievements and contributions to music.

Chaliapin was a remarkable draftsman and tried his hand at painting. Many of his works have survived, including "Self-portrait". He also tried his hand at sculpture. Performing in Ufa at the age of 17 as Stolnik in the opera Moniuszko"Pebbles" Chaliapin fell on stage - sat down past a chair. All his life from that moment he vigilantly watched the chairs on the stage. Lev Tolstoy after listening to the folk song "Nochenka" performed by Chaliapin, he expressed his impressions: "He sings too loudly ...". A Semyon Budyonny after meeting Chaliapin in the carriage and drinking a bottle of champagne with him, he recalled: "The whole carriage seemed to shudder from his mighty bass."

Chaliapin collected weapons. Old pistols, shotguns, spears, mostly donated A.M. Gorky hung on his walls. The house committee either took away his collection, then, at the direction of the deputy chairman of the Cheka, returned it.

Writer Alexei Maksimovich Gorky and singer Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin. 1903 Photo: