By Olga Fyodorova
…In 1940 the Musical Story film hit the silver screens where
a young taxi driver becomes a famous opera singer. Simple and unpretentious,
the flick immediately caught on with the people largely on the strength
of the Bolshoi Theater tenor Sergei Lemeshev who played the film’s main
character. A Russian analog of Mario Lanza, Lemeshev made people
believe the romantic impeccability of the young taxi driver who was equally
in love with singing and the good-looking dispatcher girl he serenaded
with such a burning passion...
The life of that taxi-driver-turned-opera-singer much resembled
that of Sergei Lemeshev himself. The son of a peasant father who wanted
his son to earn moneymaking shoes, Lemeshev had his eyes set on an artistic
career. At 17 he left his village and, braving the biting winter cold,
walked all the way to the nearest town 50 kilometers away only to sing
a couple of songs at a local workers’ club.
He later moved on to Moscow vying for a meager 25 vacancies
available at the singers’ department of the Moscow Conservatory 500 other
young people aspired for. He won the examiners’ hearts with his very special
timbre, so lyrical and sad…
Shortly after his graduation, the young singer was invited
to the Bolshoi Theater but, much to everyone’s surprise, he turned down
the offer surmising that they would not entrust lead parts to a beginner
and hating to make do with bit parts. Instead, he moved out to the
province to put together a program and when, several years later, he returned
to Moscow, his name was already well known by the country’s operatic community.
Tenors are lucky people singing the most fascinating and attractive
parts and Sergei Lemeshev fleshed out the stage images with inborn charm
and noble elegance all his own. For a whole forty years his youthful and
vibrant characters whose heart was so open to joy and sorrow lived on the
stage of the Bolshoi Theater as a never-dying symbol of beauty, moral purity
and highbrow aristocratism…
Every singer has a cherished dream role where his or her personality
blends with that of this character. In Lemeshev’s case it was Lensky, the
tragic character of Tchaikovsky’s opera Evgeny Onegin whose romantic daydreaming,
bubbling enthusiasm and naivet?, almost childlike whimsicality and friendliness
were so much reminiscent of what Lemeshev was all about…
Lemeshev sang Lensky for the first time in 1927 and did it
again for a staggering 500 times coming out on stage with “curly locks
so long and shiny”. Lemeshev was madly in love with his character whom
he sang with such youthful elegance and zeal during his 70th birthday performance,
oblivious of three heart attacks and a missing lung. The people who packed
the Bolshoi’s hall that memorable night saw once again the poet of love
and sorrow at his most exciting…
It was one of the longest and loudest rounds of applause the
Bolshoi Theater had ever seen because Sergei Lemeshev was admired by more
people than any other operatic singer around. There was a whole army of
the so-called Lemeshevites who knew absolutely everything about their deity:
when he woke up in the morning, what he had for breakfast and with whom…
The Lemeshevites held vigils in front of his house and the theater and
hardly a day passed by without the singer getting home with as many buttons
as he had when he ventured out.
Lemeshev built a giant fence around his country house only
to see dozens of holes, big and small, drilled by fans each and every day.
He had the holes fixed but on the following day the same thing happened
again and again… The Bolshoi’s artistic director Boris Pokrovsky provides
a very eye-opening description of the Lemeshevites’ daily patrolling outside
the theater’s “personnel only” entrance.
“While he was rehearsing a new role, there were crowds of
excited and businesslike people, mostly women, cruising outside. Using
all kinds of hints and body language only they could understand they told
each other that HE was there, rehearsing. Then one of them would
take her leave making sure that the others would immediately let her know
if something changed and HE walked out earlier than expected. It
appeared these people wanted to find out what Lemeshev himself did not
know, like which exit he would take to go out. As the rehearsal drew to
a close, the atmosphere was heating up with the fans splitting their forces,
some waiting at Entrance N1, others at Entrance N15 and the rest shuttling
between the two groups and all this just to see Lemeshev getting into his
car...”
Pathetic and loyal, the Lemeshevites are still ready to sacrifice
everything for any new publication about or recording made by their idol.
And how did Lemeshev react to this over-the-top adoration?
Modest and soft spoken, Lemeshev often felt weighed down by
his popularity always trying to hide away from this nagging attention but
always kind and courteous to his fans…
That’s probably why he was so great singing lyrical and chamber
pieces, especially love songs written by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. During the
Thirties he once sang all of Tchaikovsky’s romances, more than a hundred
in all, in several back-to-back concerts – an all-time record and a resounding
success for one of the best operatic tenors who ever lived!
Sergei Lemeshev was equally stellar singing Italian
and German music, but Russian songs were definitely his forte. And with
good reason too because his very voice and singing manner were so inherently
Russian, especially when it came to Russian folk songs. Lemeshev did more
than just singing the melody; he went right for the heart and soul of what
he sang enchanting the listeners…
During his ebbing years Lemeshev spent much time performing
with a Russian folk orchestra. Even though his voice had lost some of its
former strength, the warmth and elegance were still there…
It’s been more than 20 years since Sergei Lemeshev departed
this world but each time people hear his voice on the radio or television
they immediately forget their daily chores enjoying once again this mesmerizing
voice. What a pity that it never really got out from under Stalin’s Iron
Curtain which for so many years separated this country from the rest of
the world!
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