Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (; April 12, 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form. During the first phase of his career, Chaliapin endured direct competition from three other great basses: the powerful (1869–1942), the more lyrical (1871–1948), and Dmitri Buchtoyarov (1866–1918), whose voice was intermediate between those of Sibiriakov and Kastorsky. The fact that Chaliapin is far and away the best remembered of this magnificent quartet of rival basses is a testament to the power of his personality, the acuteness of his musical interpretations, and the vividness of his performances. Spelling note He himself spelled his surname, French-style, Chaliapine in the West, and his name even appeared on early HMV 78s as Theodore Chaliapine. In English texts, his given name is most usually rendered as Feodor or Fyodor, and his surname is most usually seen as Chaliapin. However, in the Russian pronunciation the initial consonant Ш is pronounced like sh in shop, not as ch in chop, and in reference books the surname is sometimes given a strict romanization as Shalyapin. This spelling also better reflects the fact that the name is pronounced with three syllables (Sha-LYA-pin), not four. Early life Feodor Chaliapin was born into a peasant family on February 1 (OS), 1873 in Kazan, in the wing of merchant Lisitzin's house on Rybnoryadskaya Street (now Pushkin Street) 10. This wing no longer exists, but the house with the yard where the wing was situated is still there. The next day, Candlemas (The Meeting of Our Lord), he was baptized in Epiphany (Bogoyavlenskaya) Church on Bolshaya Prolomnaya street (now Bauman Street). His godparents were his neighbors: the shoemaker Nikolay Tonkov and Ludmila Kharitonova, a 12-year-old girl. The dwelling was expensive for his father, Ivan Yakovlevich, who served as a clerk in the Zemskaya Uprava (Zemstvo District Council), and in 1878 the Chaliapin family moved to the village of Ametyevo (also Ometyevo, or the Ometyev settlements, now a settlement within Kazan) behind the area of Sukonnaya Sloboda, and settled in a small house. Early career His vocal teacher was Dmitri Usatov (1847-1913). Chaliapin began his career at Tbilisi and at the Imperial Opera in Saint Petersburg in 1894. He was then invited to sing at the Mamontov Private Opera (1896–1899); he first appeared there as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust, in which role he achieved considerable success. At Mamontov Chaliapin met Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), who was serving as an assistant conductor there and with whom he remained friends for life. Rachmaninoff taught him much about musicianship, including how to analyze a music score, and insisted that Chaliapin learn not only his own roles but also all the other roles in the operas in which he was scheduled to appear. With Rachmaninoff he learned the title role of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, which became his signature character. Chaliapin returned the favor by