In memory of Galina Vishnevskaya

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Russian intelligentsia in mourning. The famous opera singer and actress Galina Vishnevskaya passed away the day before. The farewell ceremony is scheduled for December 13th. The next day, after the funeral service at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Galina Pavlovna will be buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Galina Pavlovna (nee Ivanova) was born on October 25, 1926 in Leningrad. She survived the blockade, served in air defense units. Shortly before the end of the Great Patriotic War, she entered the Leningrad Regional Operetta Theater. She had wonderful vocals by nature, and the teachers did not have to work with a talented girl for a long time. Then she married the naval sailor Georgy Vishnevsky. The marriage lasted only two months, but the artist wore the surname of the first spouse to the last.

In 1952, Vishnevskaya was admitted to the trainee group of the Bolshoi Theater. Later she became a leading soloist and performed roles in the operas The Stone Guest, Eugene Onegin, Madame Butterfly, and Aida.

In 1955, Galina Pavlovna married Mstislav Rostropovich. “My husband changed me a lot. With him I became a softer woman. And before we met, it was harsh, sometimes even rude. This is all from a difficult childhood, from loneliness, from the war,”the singer recalled.

In the mid-seventies, the couple was forced to leave Russia. The spouses' support of the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn led to persecution by the authorities. In 1978, Vishnevskaya was stripped of her Soviet citizenship. Until 1990, the singer and her husband lived in France and the United States. And Galina Pavlovna not only continued to sing in the most famous theaters in Europe and America, but also engaged in directing.

“I don’t complain to anyone, I walk with my head up, in spite of all my envious people and I stick out like a bone in their throat,” said the artist.

In 1993, Vishnevskaya left the opera and began to act as an actress at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, and also played in several films by Russian directors. “Life has taught me to always be ready to stand up for myself, and over the years this need has turned into a need to create my own fortress, to be independent, unattainable. Be able to close the door behind you,”explained Galina Pavlovna.

Condolences to the relatives of the singer and actress were expressed by colleagues and cultural figures as well as politicians. So, Vladimir Medinsky called Galina Vishnevskaya a unique phenomenon of world culture, and her departure is a grief not only for her family and students, but also for millions of fans, writes RIA Novosti.