Feodor Chaliapine in the South America
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Title | Feodor Chaliapine in the South America. Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil. |
| Author | Nikolay Gorbunov | |
| ISBN | 978-5-900715-88-9 | |
| Publisher | Kruk | |
| City | Moscow | |
| Year | 2019 | |
| Pages | 289 + illustrations | |
| Copies | 300 |
About the Book
The book «Feodor Chaliapine in the South America» is the first research in Russia and abroad about the creative meetings of the great Russian artist in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil.
Argentina became the first country on the continent where Chaliapine had an opportunity to show his brilliant art. In 1908 the artist was invited to take part in the opening of the wonderful opera theatre «Colon» in Buenos Aires. His performances in the operas «Mephisto» by Arrigo Boito, «The Barber of Sevilla» by Gioachino Rossini and «Don Juan» by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once again showed the unmatched skills of the artist. This was picturesquely stressed by music critics in a number of articles published in the major Argentinian papers.
Feodor Chaliapine was invited to perform at the «Colon» theatre again but long term contracts in many countries did not allow him to cross the Atlantic ocean again. It happened only 22 years later.
In 1930 Feodor Chaliapine started a tour to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil. This time he showed his skills in the Russian opera «Boris Godunov» by Modest Mussorgsky in Argentina and Chile. The public was ecstatic at the theatres «Colon» in Buenos Aires and «Municipal» in Santjago de Chile. The music critics, writers, art researchers were publishing articles on Russian music and culture inspired by the creations of Chaliapine and Mussorgsky. That was another achievement of the Russian genius – to represent the art of his country abroad.
This task was successfully fullfilled by Chaliapine in Uruguay and Brazil as well. There were pieces of a lot of types and authors in his programme, representing a number of countries, but the artist paid special attention to Russian folk songs that he sang in Russian.
Despite the lack of Russian knowledge the public and the critics praised highly the art of the singer. The song of Volga Burlaks «Hey, Uhnem!» was often encored by the public.
The tour of 1930 ended in Brazil. Chaliapine's week-long visit to Rio de Janeiro became a great culture action. Every day the artist was meeting representatives of culture, music critics, journalists. His interviews, discussions and press releases were constantly on the papers' pages. It inflamed the interest for the concert scheduled for October 5, 1930 that it was destined for success.
The autor of the book thanks for assistance the personnel of the Russian centres of scince and culture in Buenos Aires and Santjago de Chile, Russian diplomats in Montevideo and Russian experts in Rio de Janeiro.
So for the first time since Chaliapine's performance at «Colon» 110 years ago and after the tour of 1930 88 years ago the Russian reader receives an opportunity to get to know how the great artist of Russia was recieved in those countries, how his tour promoted the Russian culture and the Russian music.
In fact, Feodor Chaliapine was a pioneer in bulding friendly ties with those countries long before diplomatic relations with them were established. Chaliapine is remembered and praised in the countries in question as well. In «Colon» theatre a bust monument of Chaliapine is installed – the only one singer of the kind (the others are of composers). The artisits of the theatres eagerly tale part in Chaliapine Nights at the Russian centres of science and culture ion Buenos Aires and Santjago de Chile.
One could suppose that this book would promote findings of new pieces of information on Chaliapine's performences in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil and would strengthen the friendly ties of culture between Russia and these countries.
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