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By Olga Fyodorova
Paris, May 12, 1912… “Mademoiselle Nezhdanova, may I have
a few words with you in private? A few days from now you are having a debut
at the Grand Opera. It’s very, very important for a young singer like you,
especially now that you sing with the great Caruso himself! But I can make
sure you are a success. Just give me 2,000 francs and I promise you a great
round of applause when you’re through with your aria. People will be crying
for an encore and you will have to sing it again and again… The audience
will realize that a star is being born right before their very eyes!
Don’t be surprised, the singers, they are all paying us because
those who don’t, always regret it… And with pretty good reason too because
we, claqueurs, can boo anyone off the stage, understand?”
Flush-faced, Nezhdanova flatly refused to pay and, several
days later, she was so impeccable on stage that the claqueurs simply didn’t
dare to make a single catcall...
The following day the newspapers were filled with glowing
reviews with one Parisian illustrated magazine providing the following
sensational biography of the young Russian singer:
“Nezhdanova grew up in a peasant’s family and sang each time
she was working in the field. Once Grand Prince Boris Romanov was driving
by and, thrilled by the beautiful girl, he took her to St.Petersburg, gave
her a good education and helped her onto the stage of the city’s venerable
Imperial Mariinsky Theater...”
“Rubbish!” Nezhdanova said, reading the article and immediately
sent out a protest to the editor.
“I grew up in a teacher’s family, not a peasant’s, and I never
worked in the field,” she wrote. “I loved singing, that’s right, but the
Grand Prince never heard me sing. Moreover, I never met him in my life!
I finished the high school in Odessa from where I moved
on to enter the Moscow Conservatory where, being one of their best students,
I didn’t have to pay for my tuition. I never had any sponsors and
only used the professional help given me by professor Umberto Mazetti.
In 1902, still in Conservatory, I auditioned for the Bolshoi
Theater only to find out they needed no more sopranos there. I had
apparently made an impression, though, because, a few months later, they
asked me to stand in for a missing singer. I readily obliged and they paid
me a hundred rubles. Shortly after, they signed me on for a yearly
salary of twelve hundred rubles – a paltry sum for someone singing in the
Imperial Theater, but a real Godsend for a struggling Conservatory student
like me…”
Antonina Nezhdanova spent a staggering 30 years at the Bolshoi
Theater a living legend who went down in the history of Russia’s oldest
theater.
She was lucky to have sung literally all and every part she
ever dreamed of partnering on stage with Fyodor Chaliapin, Leonid Sobinov,
Enrico Caruso, Tito Ruffo and other greats. Sergei Rakhmaninoff wrote for
her and Bernard Shaw, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Artur Nikish were among
her most devoted fans.
The Bolshoi’s young conductor Nikolai Golovanov fell head
over heels in love the moment he heard her singing. He asked her to marry
him and, even though he was 18 years her senior, Nezhdanova said yes.
The spouses raised many eyebrows living separately and financially
independent from one another. They never allowed a trace of familiarity
between them but their mutual tenderness and loving care for each other
immediately betrayed a happy couple…
Golovanov more than just an outstanding conductor, was a brilliant
pianist too and from 1919 on, they invariably paired on stage braving
the rigors of the Civil War and the myriad of problems it entailed…
Back in those days they usually paid musicians in flour and
sugar – the two main staples to which Nezhdanova’s fans often added an
occasional lump of butter and bundle of firewood. Once they presented
her a priceless gift of a saw, an axe and a couple of saucepans, one of
them filled with honey.
On September 8, 1924, there was something very unusual happening
in the hushed and empty hall of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow where the
leading singers took turns walking up to a stage microphone and singing
their best arias. They had every reason to be nervous, however, taking
part in the first nationally-broadcast radio concert…
Antonina Nezhdanova was also there and that first radio concert
started off a long series of radio appearances whose pace quickened during
World War Two with a record 58 dates done in 1942 alone! The voice of the
nationally beloved singer eased the people’s pain and inspired in them
hope for a better future…
There was something magnetic about her voice. The old recordings
predictably fail to give full credit to Nezhdanova’s extensive vocal palette,
but according to eyewitness reports, the audiences literally idolized her.
Without exaggeration, she was the best-loved singer in the entire history
of the Bolshoi Theater. Even more surprising, Nezhdanova was equally idolized
by her colleagues, which is not something you can often find in the performing
community.
The following excerpt from her diary proves just how
much she was loved and admired by her colleagues.
“In 1933 as I was marking my 60th birthday, I heard the Bolshoi’s
leading singers taking turns for a whole four hours singing me praises.
I was touched to the very bottom of my heart by their singing and heartfelt
congratulations.
In the evening they were holding a birthday party in the Bolshoi.
At 6 p.m. a bunch of our lead singers dropped by my place, flowers in hand,
and led me downstairs and into a car, filled with flowers. When we reached
the theater I saw that the streetcars had all ground to a halt and the
whole square was filled with people. A wind orchestra blared out a march,
the next moment the cheering crowd lifted me up and brought inside the
building. When I walked out on stage they gave me deafening round of applause,
which lasted for a whole 10 minutes and only subsided when I began to sing…
Up until the very end Antonina Nezhdanova kept working hard
teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, sitting on competition juries and
on the expert council of Moscow’s Museum of Music, writing memoirs about
fellow musicians she knew and advising young singers…
“There are many people out there who say that, to save your
voice, you shouldn’t sing too much. I don’t think so. You should spare
your voice, no doubt about that, but only from what is really bad for it,
such as alcohol, cigarettes, spices, from singing on an empty stomach or
immediately after meals. The voice needs continuous honing and polishing
and to be successful you should use your brains and work with desire, hope
and loving care…”
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