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1976
             
In the Soviet Union, grand preparations were underway for the upcoming bicentennial anniversary of the Bolshoi Theater. The country's oldest musical theater, the Bolshoi started off as a small-time private troupe owned by Prince Urusov. In 1806 it became one of the four Imperial Theaters and, after the 1917 socialist revolution, acquired a national status. The Communist leaders called the Bolshoi the country's main stage and occasionally showed up there in the company of visiting foreign dignitaries.
Russia's foremost singers have, over the years, performed here, among them the great Fyodor Chaliapin. Back in the Soviet days, members of the Bolshoi's star-studded company enjoyed many perks and to showcase its leading singers and dancers, the company gave a series of anniversary performances in Moscow, in other major Russian cities and even abroad.
In commemoration of the forthcoming jubilee, many leading singers and dancers received high state awards and the operatic diva Yelena Obraztsova was given the much-coveted Lenin Prize.
One of the world's leading opera singers, Yelena Obraztsova has the best impresarios and theater managers from around the world lining up to get her signed. Unlike other singers, the State Concert Organization, the Soviet performers' only outlet to the outside world, allows Obraztsova to sign open-ended contracts. And with a good reason too, because being one of the best-paid singers around, she is supposed to hand over much of that money to the state…
Yelena Obraztsova is widely admired for her inimitable voice and also for drive, sincerity and acting skills…
In November they were holding in Moscow a national competition of young conductor bringing together 75 musicians aged 19 through 35. The top awards went to the 31 year-old Valentin Kozhin and the 22 year old Ossetian Valery Gergiyev. Valentin Kozhin, an established chief conductor of a philharmonic orchestra in Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, was an immediately recognizable and very impulsive musician, equally good in romantic and modern music, just back from a very successful tour of the United States…
The other gold medallist, Valery Gergiyev, was still studying at the Leningrad Conservatory where his teacher, professor Ilya Musin, cherished him as one of his most endowed students destined for an outstanding career… Valery Gergiyev didn't let his teacher down winning the first prize at the following year's Herbert von Karajan competition in West Berlin and later becoming a conductor, and then the chief conductor of the venerable Mariinsky Theater. Years on, Valery Gergiyev is widely recognized as the world finest conductor…
Back in 1976, he was still a novice conducting Mozart's Overture, the first big stage experience in his whole life…
The Russian musicians are going strong participating in the most prestigious international competitions. In Paris, the 30 year-old baritone Sergei Leiferkus bows out with the Grand Prix of an international singers' competition. A lead singer with Leningrad's Maly Opera Theater, Leiferkus also wins a special award instituted by the Grand Opera Theater, and he has since sung at La Scala, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
In Munich, Yuri Bashmet wins first prize of the very prestigious international contest held in the Bavarian capital. The 20 year-old Moscow Conservatory student, he gives the viola, a typically orchestral instrument, a truly leading sound…
On October 19, pianist Emil Gilels was marking his 60th birthday. An internationally-acclaimed musician, he had been wowing audiences for more than 40 years. Starting off as a spirited virtuoso, Gilels was now a wizened maestro still retaining his definite sense of rootedness in the youthful romanticism of his earlier days…
The proud owner of every imaginable honor one could only hope for, Emil Gilels added to them the much-coveted title of Hero of Socialist Labor which made him part of the country's much-pampered artistic elite…
On October 30, the very same title was bestowed on the popular songwriter Anatoly Novikov who was celebrating his 80th birthday…
Anatoly Novikov's patriotic and very melodious songs were very much loved and some of them could be easily mistaken for Russian folk songs…
In Moscow, the Lenkom Theater raised many eyebrows staging a musical, which was a completely new genre for Russia. Written by the Moscow-based composer Alexei Rybnikov, the musical, titled The Star and Death of Joaquin Murieta, related a tragic story of the love and death of a young couple. The new production was a smash hit and its songs sold in millions of copies all across the nation…
New Year's night saw the premiere of Eldar Ryazanov's The Irony of Fate - a lyrical comedy about the rough and tumble of our everyday life, about the lookalike streets and houses we live in. The music written for the film by Mikael Tariverdiyev was absolutely astounding where the composer's trademark low key melodies breathed a new life into the lyrics written by some of the finest poets Russia ever had…
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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