By Olga Fyodorova
…On a warm sunny day in 1929 a small Moscow church was
packed to capacity just like it always was because, despite the Soviet
authorities’ ruthless crackdown on religion, people kept flocking in to
pray and listen to the amazingly powerful voice of the archdeacon, which
easily snuffed out the candle lights. That day was different though. Two
men walked up to the archdeacon and asked him to follow them to a car waiting
outside. Everyone believed it was an arrest because priests were
being taken away everywhere else in the country...
The archdeacon obediently got into the car preparing for the
worst and was very much surprised when, a short while later, the car parked
outside the radio committee where he was eagerly awaited by the committee’s
director and the Culture Minister Anatoly Lunacharsky himself. Without
beating about the bush, Lunacharsky offered the man the job of a lead singer
with the State Radio.
The archdeacon’s wife almost backed out seeing her husband
walking in sans his trademark beard, with a crew cut and donning a regular
suit instead of the black cassock he usually wore. “I’m an artist now!”
he announced visibly satisfied with his newly acquired status.
The sound engineers at the radio just didn’t know what to
do with the new singer’s voice, which was blowing out the mikes and overdriving
the gear.
Maxim Mikhailov, that was the former archdeacon’s name, found
it pretty hard adjusting to his new specialty. The son of a peasant with
only two years of elementary school education behind his back, he now had
a hard time learning to read music. And still, the 36 year-old man plunged
himself fully into work and just a few months later he could easily sing
from paper…
Three years later Mikhailov was invited to the Bolshoi Theater.
Doubting that they would admit a music-illiterate to the company of the
country’s best music theater, Mikhailov still ventured to an audition.
“…I entered the hall all resplendent in red velvet and was
literally overwhelmed by the shining gold of the balconies and boxes and
the glitter of the crystal chandeliers,” Maxim Mikhailov later recalled.
“The hall seemed so giant, stretching out forever. When they put down the
lights I was scared by the place’s ominous darkness. I stepped back and
came hard against a grand piano that was standing behind me. Feeling
its reassuring hardness, I thought I would never be able to fill out that
giant space and so I should sing as loud as I possibly could. I did just
that and they told me to stop hollering and keep my voice a bit down. I
sighed and, now knowing full well they would kick me out, started to sing
again…”
As you might have already guessed, Maxim was admitted
and that very same year he also entered the Moscow Conservatory. Already
a 39 year-old man surrounded by 18 year-olds, he still worked very hard
combining his studies with a busy operatic schedule. Never asking for indulgence,
he still managed to do it all wowing his listeners and professors alike.
At the Bolshoi Maxim Mikhailov started out small immediately
standing out from the rest. His first serious stage effort was the
part of Khan Konchak in Alexander Borodin’s opera Prince Igor.
“Maxim Mikhailov was born to play this part,” said a glowing
review, “Stumpy and heavily-built, the man looks like a mighty oak tree
and with the makeup on, he comes off as a true-blue Polovtsy Khan with
sly eyes like slits and protruding cheekbones. His rumbling bass goes down
and down telling about Konchak’s sword, which has spilt so much enemy blood…
And when he sings about the deadly horror its hardened steel wreaked on
everyone its sends shivers running down your spine…”
The new singer quickly caught on with the concert-going public and
even the all-powerful dictator Josef Stalin who was a frequent guest at
the Bolshoi. Stalin often invited Mikhailov over to his box and they
talked at length about music and life. Stalin liked this honest and square
man and eventually started to invite him to the Kremlin. At times
the telephone started ringing in the dead of night with a politely official
voice telling the singer they had sent out a car to him. Mikhailov
obediently got dressed and went down… Stalin liked sitting up late and
the singer often kept him company during those long vigils. Stalin
poured himself some red wine and a glass of vodka for Mikhailov and they
just sat there together talking the night away. During those longs chats,
Mikhailov would often ask the dictator to help his less well-off colleagues
but he never once asked anything for himself…
Stalin was especially fond of Mikhailov’s rendition of Ivan
Susanin, the main character of Mikhail Glinka’s classic opera of the same
name. And with pretty good reason too because in Mikhailov’s dramatization,
the ordinary 17th century Russian peasant came off as a symbol of patriotism
and selfless service to his county. Singing Susanin for the first
time in 1939, Maxim Mikhailov ultimately ended his stage career singing
this very same character during his last stage appearance in 1957 bringing
to nearly 400 total number of time he sang Susanin during those 18 long
years…
The old-timers at the Bolshoi still remember how unbelievably
generous he was sometimes giving almost all his monthly salary to a needy
friend. Moreover, Mikhailov never remembered the names of his debtors
and always surprised when they paid him back. “Come on, it was a present,
not a loan!” he would say giving the money back…
People say he never lived in his Moscow apartment spending
all his spare time in his country home just outside the city tending to
his kitchen garden and small animal farm and cutting firewood for his stove
he would never ever trade for central heating. He also had a bathhouse
there he always fired himself. He liked sweating there, walking barefoot
on the snow and drinking ice-cold milk from the cellar, which only made
his voice stronger and louder...
They say that before coming out on stage, Mikhailov
downed a small glass of vodka eating it down with a self-pickled cucumber
he kept inside an inner pocket of his magnificent tux.
People say he never sang at home only doing it
out in the street whenever he felt like singing…
The very moment his powerful voice started reverberating
across the village, silence fell everywhere with the parents immediately
cutting short their frolicking kids saying: “There is Maxim Dormidontovich
Mikhailov singing out there, can’t you hear?”
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