By Olga Fyodorova
The year 1964… The Bolshoi Opera is offering a series of sold out performances
on stage of Milan’s venerable La Scala Theater. Winding up the Bolshoi’s
triumphal tour was Prince Igor by the great 19th century Russian composer
Alexander Borodin. Singing the opera’s main character was the legendary
bass Ivan Petrov…
During the intermission a woman knocked on the door of Petrov’s makeup
room.
“Excuse me, you are Ivan Petrov, aren’t you?”
“That’s right…”
“I’m Marina Fyodorovna Chalipina…”
“The great Fyodor Chaliapin’s daughter?”
“Yes… That’s why I’m so nervous, because my father spent so many years
singing with the Bolshoi. I’ve heard so much about the Bolshoi, its great
traditions and now I was finally able to see it with my own eyes…
I came here right from Rome where I live to see Boris Godunov, Prince Igor
and other Russian operas. Your Godunov immediately reminded me of my father…
People call you the one who carries on my father’s work, I guess they are
right…”
“I’m flattered, but I think you are exaggerating my
abilities. I will never sing like he did, that’s for sure. When I was a
young man I told myself: well, this person is a genius all right, but if
I learn to sing, I will be no slouch either… I’m past forty now and I realize
full well that there will never be another Chaliapin. It’s no use trying
to emulate his singing, you’ve got to go your own way…”
“But I know that every opera singer has a talisman.
I want to give you something I hope you can also use as one. It’s a ring
my father always put on before singing Czar Boris, the princes and boyars
the Russian operas abound in… Put this ring on and let it always remind
you of my father…”
Ivan Petrov was born and spent his child years in Siberia, on the shores
of the beautiful Lake Baikal. Johann Krauze, for that was his real
name, came from a family of naturalized Germans who settled down
in Russia centuries ago working as engineers, scientists and almost all
being good singers too. Johann’s sisters were good singers all, but
he seemed to have no voice at all and sang only to please his parents.
His biggest passion was football and volleyball he could play day and night…
In 1936 the family moved to Moscow but with the war
now looming large, anyone with a German name was looked upon as a Nazi
spy. To survive, they had to take on a new name and that was how Johann
Krauze became Ivan Petrov…
Then, suddenly, Ivan’s bass started cutting through,
not yet very resonant and voluminous enough, but Ivan was lucky to have
good teachers who modulated his voice and firmed up the low end. By the
end of his first year at the conservatory, Petrov was already singing pretty
complex operatic arias and a year later signed up as a lead singer with
the Moscow Philharmonic Society.
The 19 year-old singer was now constantly on the road taking part in concert
performances of popular operas. A born entertainer, he needed neither a
costume nor makeup to bring out the very essence of his operatic characters…
In 1941 when the German troops were rolling towards Moscow, Ivan Petrov
and his colleagues at the Moscow Philharmonic headed to the battlefront
giving a staggering 300 concerts in just a few months of performing for
soldiers fighting at the front and recuperating in military hospitals.
In 1942 when the invading Nazi armies had already been pushed back from
Moscow, Ivan Petrov auditioned for the Bolshoi and was hired on the spot…
Starting off with cameo parts, the tall and skinny young man with a long
neck and juicy bass immediately caught on with the concert-going public…
In 1947 Ivan Petrov and a group of other young Boshoi singers went to the
First World Youth Festival in Prague and won the gold medal taking part
in a singers’ competition there. Two years later he repeated his
success singing in Budapest…
Shortly after he cemented this initial success winning several much-coveted
Stalin Prizes, including one awarded him for his excellent performance
of
Kochubei in Tchaikovsky’s opera Mazepa.
Boasting a very impressive record of 30 leading roles, Ivan Petrov was
equally good singing Russian and West European classical operas. The stern
Dosifei in Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky, the suffering King Philip
in Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi, the funny Don Basilio in Il Barbieri di
Seville opera by Gioacchino Rossini and, of course, Mephistopheles in Charles
Gounod’s opera Faust. At once elegant and mockingly gracious, his Mephistopheles
was a real monster too…
Mephistopheles was Ivan Petrov’s all-time love he successfully showcased
in Eastern Europe, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain and France, singing
at the world-famous Grand Opera in Paris.
Great operatic singers are rarely good at interpreting chamber music though.
It’s like in painting where some people are great with oils and others
are excellent water colorists…
Ivan Petrov knew his colors all right assisted in this amazing ability
by his longtime stage partner of 30 years, pianist Semyon Stuchevsky…
At 50, Ivan Petrov decided to call it quits, largely because of his quickly
progressing diabetes, which was eating up his vocal chords. Pained to see
his voice losing its former shine, the proud master just stepped down before
it was too late…
A living legend, Ivan Petrov now has his stage costumes
displayed at the Bolshoi’s museum and the ring once presented him by Chaliapin’s
daughter is now in the great singer’s museum in Moscow.
Always true to his workaholic ways, Ivan Petrov is now
teaching the Bolshoi’s young singers, writing a book of memoirs, helping
to put together a sound anthology of Bolshoi performances, sitting on the
veterans’ council of the Central House of Artists in Moscow and getting
new award, just like the special medal from the Irina Arkhipova fund he
received on January in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Russian
operatic art.
|