10 September 2016. Some of My Favourite Things… P G Lisitian Sings “Ya Vas Lyublyu” from “Pikovaya Dama”

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An aria from La Traviata… Joe Green in Russian!

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Here’s a patriotic song in a more popular vein… Moya rodina (My Motherland)

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P G Lisitian (Peoples Artist of the USSR) came from a humble working-class family… in the money-grubbing West, he would’ve got nowhere. In the USSR, he found an outlet for his talent. That’s something that the righties never talk about… how the Sovs sincerely sought out talent of all sorts (artistic, scientific, and athletic) amongst all classes and how they gave people a chance to develop their skills. Lisitian was a leading soloist at the Bolshoi (officially, the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre of Russia (GABT Rossii)) from 1940 to 1966; he taught at conservatoire for many years afterward (he died in 2004, in his 93rd year). Ya vas lyublyu from Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama (The Queen of Spades) has to the be the most famous aria in Russian opera… need I mention that Pavel Gerasimovich was a mentor of D A Khvorostovsky? Many believe his interpretation to be the best yet… I agree.

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1 January 2012. A Multimedia Presentation. The People Who REALLY Make the “Best of the Bolshoi”…

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The Bolshoi Ballet in the Adagio from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at the Gala Reopening of the Bolshoi in October 2011

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The Bolshoi Opera in a Soviet-era film Kompozitor Glinka (The Composer Glinka, 1952) (fragment of Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar)

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The Bolshoi Ballet in the Waltz from Prokofiev‘s Cinderella at the Gala Reopening of the Bolshoi in October 2011

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The Coronation Scene from Mussorgsky‘s Boris Gudunov, performed by the Bolshoi Opera under the baton of Nikolai Golovanov, with the role of Boris sung by the legendary basso Aleksandr Pirogov (a performance from 1947)

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Yekaterina Maksimova dancing Gounod’s Walpurgis Night with the Bolshoi Ballet in 1974

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The artists and artisans of the Bolshoi have an unbroken and untrammelled history… from Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union to the present transitional state… and they’ll continue under whatever replaces that. Without the hard, devoted, diligent, and skilled work of he Bolshoi’s dedicated staff, the magic and beauty of the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera wouldn’t exist. They epitomise the Dignity of Labour… nothing more need be said…

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