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By Olga Fyodorova
The summer of 1951. Conservatory entrance examinations in the Ural city
of Sverdlovsk, now Yekatirinburg. The vocal department.
“Yuri Gulyayev, would you come in, please!”
“…My God! It’s not a stadium, young man, it’s a conservatory, you understand?”
“What’s wrong with my tracksuit? I’m sorry, but that’s the only dress I
have, really. When I start working and making money, I will buy something
better…”
“All right, all right… Sing something, let’s see what kind of a singer
you are…”
Yuri Gulyayev, a handsome young man hailing from Tyumen in Siberia entered
the Sverdlovsk Conservatory after spending three years at a medical college
only to realize that his true calling was singing…
Yuri started singing early on crooning Russian folk songs at school parties.
His teacher said he would someday make it onto the big stage, but Yuri
paid little attention regarding the profession as not serious enough for
a real man. Meanwhile, his voice was getting better and better and he was
now singing when going to bed at night and waking up in the morning…
At the conservatory, his teachers were sure he was a tenor, but they never
really managed to coax the high notes out of him. They once even considered
dropping him altogether but Faina Obraztsova, a seasoned teacher, suggested
trying to move him a tad down and that was when Yuri Gulyayev’s richly-textured
baritone started coming out, nice and easy…
Still a student, Yuri signed on with the local opera company singing several
leading parts there. After winning an international competition in Vienna,
he was invited to join the Kiev Opera, then one of the best such companies
in the country. Even there, his splendid baritone was not lost in the chorus
of those stellar voices his only problem being that all the operas there
were in Ukrainian. Yuri had to relearn the familiar parts and, a few months
later, he already felt pretty comfortable singing Figaro, Germon, Onegin
and Escamillo in Ukrainian.
During his 15-year stint with the Kiev Opera, Yuri Gulyaev also dabbled
extensively in chamber music, preferring, of course, the 19th century romantics
like Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Rakhmaninoff… He turned
a short, two-minute long, love song into a heartrending story of love,
separation, jealousy and passion, his voice now trembling with sweet premonition,
now ringing with happiness…
Those little masterpieces were all about human life, pain, joy, exasperation
and hope, with the singer painstakingly looking for the right intonation
and singing one and the same phrase over and over again in his head even
when he was talking to friends or doing home chores…
All this hard work never showed on stage though with the people only seeing
a handsome and smiling singer who knew when to hold back his voice and
switch to a murmur… And still, each song he sang went right into the hearts
and souls of his listeners, so pure, so penetrating… He had a very intimate
way of singing and the impression was that it was his life he was singing
about…
Quickly appreciating Yuri’s talent, composers started offering him new
songs and romances and even though they were later sung by others, no one
could do it better than Yuri did…
Those modern songs quickly made him a cult figure and a must feature of
almost each and every song festival, concert and television show they had
in the 70s and 80s. His friendly and open smile made him the darling
of millions of people around the country. He had many politicians, scientists,
cosmonauts and actors he called friends but only a handful of opera singers,
with the rest shunning him for his “defection” to pop music.
Then, all of a sudden, there came an invitation for him to join the venerable
Bolshoi Opera in Moscow. Starting off with a very excellent performance
of the theater’s lead parts, Yuri eventually saw their number dwindling
and his colleagues acidly telling him not to worry because he was singing
on TV all the time…
Well, the Bolshoi’s old timers couldn’t care less about the universally
adored “pop-star”, as they called him, and no matter how hard he tried,
Yuri never really managed to change that attitude. Heartbroken and
having virtually nothing to sing there, Yuri Gulyayev now spent all his
time touring the country much to the satisfaction of his many followers…
On June 24, 1986 his heart stopped beating... He was only 55 and there
was a plane ticket in his pocket and yet another tour coming up…
His son later carefully put together all of his father’s recordings releasing
a series of CDs and audiocassettes, giving new generations of people a
chance to enjoy Yuri Gulyayev’s wonderful voice that was so joyful, tender
and loving…
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