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By Olga Fyodorova
The Bolshoi stage… The show is still hours away. There is a man of Herculean
stature wandering among the sets…
“My soul’s crying gripped by fear, a premonition of something dark and
menacing looming large…”
“No, it doesn’t sound right... What about emphasizing “fear”? Gripped by
fear, a premonition of something dark and menacing looming large…”
“Czar Boris Godunov… Historians say he was so intelligent
and crafty, like no other Czar before or since… Few of his contemporaries
had the vision to appreciate this man, that’s why his soul is in pain anticipating
evil… Chaliapin was absolutely fantastic singing Boris, right there, on
the Bolshoi’s sprawling stage. Reizen, Pirogov and Nesterenko were no slouches
either, that’s for sure. Just an hour from now I will be putting on all
that regal attire, and scepter in hand, walk out on stage…”
Vladimir Matorin signed up with the Bolshoi already a seasoned singer after
nearly a 20-year stint at Moscow’s Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko
musical theater. He was one the best there but singing in the Bolshoi was
everyone’s dream. Matorin had unsuccessfully tried to join the Bolshoi
before and now they finally took him on board, assigning him all their
leading bass parts. He sang Boris about 50 times also did it on tour in
Austria, Germany, Italy and Britain…
The Matorins had never been musicians and when the 18 year-old Vladimir’s
voice became too powerful to ignore, everyone was surprised. Vladimir
was a welcome guest at Moscow’s Gnessins Music Institute. His teachers
initially thought he had a baritone, but it started sliding down eventually
resulting in a juicy and beautiful bass…
Russia has always been rich in good bases maybe because bass suits the
Russian nature and mentality so perfectly. Indeed, Russia is a country
of big and strong men and their voices are never high, are they?
“Yevgeny Ivanov, my teacher, used to tell me: “Bass is a very special thing.
It starts shaping up when you are 25 and matures when you are about 40.”
Now I can see how right he was…” – Vladimir recalls.
From the very outset, Matorin proved himself as being more than just a
fine singer, but also being an intelligent and gifted actor. He painstakingly
rehearsed each part, reading and thinking hard trying to emulate the
posture, gestures and intonation of his characters. He paid special attention
to studying the time the opera was set in.
“It’s really crucial to feel the way people acted back in those days,”
he says. “Living in the 21st century, I’ve got to move back centuries…
Sometimes it’s a bit scary, really, but, overall, it’s pretty easy too
because human psychology and behavior change little with time. The hardest
thing here is to feel the concrete character and build it up to a kind
of a symbol…”
Directors love him because he is fun to work with and he has his own idea
of each part he sings. He may argue offering his own vision of the character
but he is always ready to listen to what other people have to say because
the end result of this joint effort is what really counts here…
“Sometimes I find rehearsals even more interesting than the actual performance,”
he admits. “I love rehearsals because this is where you get to the
very core of your character. It did not look much fun when I was young
though, I thought it was so boring... Back then I just wanted to come out
on stage and show off before my friends and the girls… I was going for
everything that was hip and loud always waiting for deafening applause.
These days I’m going more for the quality, even though the people’s reaction
is also very important because without that you may loose your direction…”
Vladimir Matorin is an excellent teacher too saying that teaching young
singers is just about as important as singing yourself…
“I find it very gratifying to mingle with youngsters, to teach them useful
things and learn a thing or two myself,” he admits. “It’s no secret
that this is a two way road, really. Sometimes you hear something during
the lesson and think: “Gee, I could use this, say, in Don Carlos or Faust…”
I want my students to know the reason why they actually come out on stage,
to love the way the curtains smell, to have no stage fright and to devote
themselves wholly to their calling…”
Despite his towering height and gargantuan proportions, Vladimir Matorin
is very agile and easy going never thinking twice before going on the road.
“This ease of movement in time and space I learned from my job, he says.
An artist has got to have a special character and way of thinking. And
imagination too… That’s why, coming to Scandinavia, I feel myself as if
I were a Norse trader from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Sadko, in France – as
King Renee from Iolanthe by Tchaikovsky, in Spain I’m like King Philip
from Verdi’s Don Carlos and on the Volga I keep thinking about my good
old character Stenka Razin…”
Operas, European chamber music, old Russian love songs and folk songs are
all part of Vladimir Matorin’s extensive and diverse repertory…
“That’s exactly what I like most in my profession,” - he says. - “I don’t
know what I like more, operas or concerts. I sing everything, even Orthodox
chants on special permission from Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy
the Second. I also love the Russian folk songs, which are so daring and
free flowing, just like everything that is genuinely Russian…”
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