By Olga Fyodorova
July 1988. The Bolshoi office.
“May I?…”
“Alexander Vasilyevich, is that you? Please come in! What can I do for
you?”
“Well, I have a letter here, a letter of resignation, you know…”
“Are you leaving?… How come?!”
“Well, enough is enough… It’s time to make way for the youngsters… I’m
82 now, you know that?”
“You’re kidding me! You definitely don’t look your age, always so fit and
cheerful…”
“We are not getting any younger… At least that’s what my heart and liver
keep telling me these days… And my family is also telling me it’s time
to quit after all these years…”
“How long have you been working here, by the way?…”
“Depends on where you count from… I’ve been working as a choirmaster for
58 years now, but if you add to this the years I spent singing in the Bolshoi’s
children’s choir, then the figure will be well past 60…”
“I can’t believe it! And how old were you when you first came out on stage?”
“13. I was a daredevil with a high-pitched voice. My friends called me
“Commander”. Running the Bolshoi’s children’s choir then was Ulrich
Avranek – a great musician and, as I later realized, an excellent psychologist
too. He immediately figured me out and, to get me interested, told me I
would sing in the Queen of Spades… There is a boys’ choir there where they
march playing soldiers and they have a commander who is as young as they
are… That was the part Avranek assigned me… It was a long time ago but
each time we have the Queen of Spades and the choir comes out, my heart
starts leaping out of my chest…”
Alexander Rybnov was 8 when he was admitted to Moscow’s Synodal Music School
whose boys’ choir was one of the best in Europe playing sold out concerts
in Poland, Italy, Germany and Austria. His stint there was pretty short
though. After the 1917 socialist revolution the school was closed down
as part of the Bolsheviks’ all out crusade against the Church…
The school eventually continued as a choir academy. Happily, many of its
excellent teachers stayed on giving Alexander the best training one could
ever dream of…
Simultaneously with his studies at the academy, Alexander signed up with
the children’s choir of the Bolshoi Theater. When his crystal clear treble
progressed into a dense, richly-textured baritone, he was even allowed
to sing cameo lead parts on the stage of the country’s oldest music theater.
Shortly after graduating from the choir conducting and music theory departments
of the Moscow Conservatory in 1930, Alexander Rybnov landed the prestigious
job running the Bolshoi’s children’s choir…
In opera, a good choir is half the battle, especially in Russian opera
where there are so many mass scenes of epic magnitude. The Russian opera
was his biggest passion because here he was free to showcase his amazing
talent, which reached its all-time peak in the coronation scene in the
Boris Godunov opera by Modest Mussorgsky. The majestic chords blasted out
by the Bolshoi choir reverberated powerfully against the backdrop of the
equally impressive chiming of bells! Alexander Rybnov fielded a choir of
120 top-tier singers each with character and role all his own, resulting
in an absolutely unforgettable spectacle of sound and power…
The Bolshoi choir was very different when singing prayers Russian classical
operas abound in and that was where Rybnov’s stint at the synodal music
school came in so handy! He expertly emulated the way these prayers were
sung by top-notch Orthodox Church choirs sending the audience on their
feet and applauding like mad after each such prayer…
During a 1973 performance at Milan’s famous La Scala opera house, they
had to stop the opera because the audience demanded an encore from the
choir… They never repeat numbers at La Scala but that night they had to
bend that longtime rule…
The Bolshoi choir was absolute candy to the Western ear always inspiring
rave accounts in the press...
During performances the choirmaster is normally on stage, hiding behind
the curtains conducting the choir and showing them when to begin because
the choir members sometimes find it hard to see the orchestra conductor
from where they are. Now they put television monitors between the
curtains so that the singers can have a better view of the conductor. Not
so in Rybnov’s day, though, when he only had his knowledge of the score
and his expertise to rely on in the semi-darkness of the giant stage…
A man of amazing memory and intuition, Alexander Rybnov was always like
a duck to water inspiring confidence in the conductors who were always
happy to have him backstage handling the choir…
There were some really excellent voices in the Bolshoi choir. Alexander
Rybnov always knew a fine voice when he heard one, being a good singer
himself and always going for the very best. Trying to talk him into taking
on board someone’s less than excellent relative or friend was monkey business
because he never vouched for anyone who was not up to the mark…
But when it came to standing up for any really good singer who, due to
political or other considerations, was denied a trip abroad, Rybnov fought
tooth and nail! “I don’t care if he doesn’t know the name of the Communist
leader of the country we are going to!” he thundered in the office of the
Bolshoi’s director and even the Culture Minister. “Leaders come and go
but you will never find me another person who can handle a C so high!”
When it came to art, he never backed off from what he thought was right.
That’s probably why his choir sounded so great…
A living legend, Alexander Rybnov had the Bolshoi’s entire history at his
fingertips and took delight in sharing with his colleagues the wealth of
old theater tales he knew so well. A strikingly artistic personality,
he grabbed everyone’s attention the moment he entered the room…
Towering like a mighty oak tree, Alexander Rybnov had long lost track of
his age becoming a veritable highlight of the Bolshoi Theater. Everyone
believed he was destined to die on stage. However, when young people took
the helm of Russia’s oldest music theater in 1988, he suddenly realized
it was time to leave…
He hoped he now had all the time in the world to relax out in the country,
pick mushrooms and go out fishing, but, all of a sudden, the thrill was
gone… Less than four years later Alexander Rybnov passed away…
Of his 86 years he devoted 78 to music and 63 years to the Bolshoi Theater
where he steered the choir through 85 operas. He brought up a daughter
who is now a choirmaster too, and a grandson who followed in his grandfather’s
footsteps…
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