The prominent Russian actress, Yelena Gogoleva dominated Moscow's theatrical
stage from the 1920’s through the 1980’s. Richly endowed by nature with
a larger-than-life talent and an exceptional beauty, Gogoleva lived 93
years, 75 of which she spent with her beloved Maly Theater.
She was destined to act on stage from the very outset. Her mother, an actress
with a provincial theater, was eager to see her
daughter someday join the Maly Theater company and she
worked hard to get little Yelena ready for a stage career.
At 15 Gogoleva entered the drama department of the Moscow Philharmonic
Society, taking lessons from leading Maly Theater actors. Lissome, with
a mesmerizingly beautiful and inspired face, whose thick black eyebrows
and unusually low-pitched, albeit melodious voice belied her young age,
she immediately caught everyone's fancy when reading a monologue from Schiller's
“The Maid of Orleans” during her entrance examinations. Excitable and nimble,
she looked more like a young boy than a 16-year-old girl.
Two years later, Yelena's dream came true when in 1918 she joined the Maly
Theater company. The Civil war was raging and “people were hungry and freezing
sitting with their fur coats and felt boots on. It still was business as
usual at the theater with rehearsals and shows going as planned in the
dim light of a single emergency bulb, in an inspiring display of the actors'
genuine and selfless devotion to their chosen art...” Yelena Gogoleva wrote
in her memoirs.
Gogoleva's debut role was that of Jessica in Shakespeare's “The Merchant
of Venice”. Other roles, in comedies and tragedies alike, followed and
each one bore the stamp of her inimitable talent and personality...
Yelena Gogoleva lived a long and happy life, not because she was so lavishly
decorated by the state, but rather because she immensely enjoyed her work.
Gogoleva rarely appeared in radio and TV broadcasts and she was not a movie
star either, but she devoted all her life to the Maly Theater she just
couldn’t live without. This selfless devotion apparently helped her
survive the many hardships that befell her over the years. During the 1930’s
she went down with tuberculosis which affected her vocal chords and silenced
her for almost a year. Losing her son when she was still a young woman,
Gogoleva held out so valiantly that her colleagues could hardly see the
tragedy she was going through... Several years earlier Yelena Gogoleva
suffered a fractured hip joint but unable to live without the theater,
she quickly recovered, much to her doctors' surprise. It just so happened
that they were finishing rehearsals of a new play where she very appropriately
had the part of an old princess who, hating to attend the court of
Emperor Pavel I of Russia pretended to be paralyzed in both legs and remained
confined to a wheelchair. Gogoleva was absolutely great in that role which
she played until her very death.
Gogoleva's one-of-a-kind performance literally brought the house down with
the people showering the great actress with flowers and her peers applauding
her again and again in tribute to her amazing ability to create convincing
characters on stage...
Still, the years were taking their toll and, after one of her last performances,
the great actress whispered: “My God, I'm so tired!" Two weeks later she
died...
Yelena Gogoleva was probably one of the few remaining holdovers from the
Silver Age of Russian culture and if those who say that energy is left
behind by the fallen giants to keep new generations going are right, then
some invisible part of this great actress still lives in the theater she
loved so much…
04/07/06
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