At the Singing Chapel of St. Petersburg, he took a class in choral conducting and went to enroll in the conducting department at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Rubin, but accidentally missed the exam. So as not to lose whole year training, Denis decided to enroll in the vocal department there.

In 1993, Denis's first professional performance took place at the festival in Ludwigsburg, where he sang a concert modern music with an orchestra.

In 1995, he was invited to participate in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera (New York), where he trained for 2 years with such opera legends as Renata Scotto, Louis Quilico, Regine Crispin, Carlo Bergonzi.

The singer became widely known for his performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at the opening ceremony of the 18th Winter Olympic Games in 1998 in Nagano.

Denis Sedov sang with such stars as: Placido Domingo, Yo-Yo Ma, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti, Nikolai Gyaurov, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Nani Bregvadze. The singer collaborated with several well-known record labels: Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, Naxos.

International career

Career in Russia

Denis Sedov conducts an extensive touring activities not only abroad. Russian listeners in about eighty cities from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Murmansk and Vorkuta, from Tyumen and Kazan to Irkutsk, Chita, Vladivostok and Sakhalin were able to hear the singer’s voice on the stages of their philharmonic societies and opera houses.

Bossa nova & Samba

The singer plans to work in several original projects at once. First of all, the show program “Around the World with a Balalaika” with the Bis-Kvit ensemble, as well as a program of Brazilian popular music - bossa nova and samba - “White Bossa Project” in a chamber composition.

Videos

• - “The Coronation of Poppea” by Claudio Monteverdi (Seneca), dir. Klaus Michael Grüber, dir. Mark Minkowski, Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival.

Write a review of the article "Sedov, Denis Borisovich"

Notes

Links

Excerpt characterizing Sedov, Denis Borisovich

Two enemy cannonballs had already flown over the bridge, and there was a crush on the bridge. In the middle of the bridge, having dismounted from his horse, pressed with his thick body against the railing, stood Prince Nesvitsky.
He, laughing, looked back at his Cossack, who, with two horses in the lead, stood a few steps behind him.
As soon as Prince Nesvitsky wanted to move forward, the soldiers and carts again pressed on him and again pressed him against the railing, and he had no choice but to smile.
- What are you, my brother! - the Cossack said to the Furshtat soldier with the cart, who was pressing on the infantry crowded with the very wheels and horses, - what are you! No, to wait: you see, the general has to pass.
But Furshtat, not paying attention to the name of the general, shouted at the soldiers blocking his way: “Hey!” fellow countrymen! keep left, wait! “But the fellow countrymen, crowding shoulder to shoulder, clinging with bayonets and without interruption, moved along the bridge in one continuous mass. Looking down over the railing, Prince Nesvitsky saw the fast, noisy, low waves of Ens, which, merging, rippling and bending around the bridge piles, overtook one another. Looking at the bridge, he saw equally monotonous living waves of soldiers, coats, shakos with covers, backpacks, bayonets, long guns and, from under the shakos, faces with wide cheekbones, sunken cheeks and carefree tired expressions, and moving legs along the sticky mud dragged onto the boards of the bridge . Sometimes, between the monotonous waves of soldiers, like a splash of white foam in the waves of Ens, an officer in a raincoat, with his own physiognomy different from the soldiers, squeezed between the soldiers; sometimes, like a piece of wood winding along the river, a foot hussar, an orderly or a resident was carried across the bridge by waves of infantry; sometimes, like a log floating along the river, surrounded on all sides, a company or officer's cart, piled to the top and covered with leather, floated across the bridge.
“Look, they’ve burst like a dam,” the Cossack said, stopping hopelessly. -Are there many of you still there?
– Melion without one! - a cheerful soldier walking nearby in a torn overcoat said winking and disappeared; another, old soldier walked behind him.
“When he (he is the enemy) begins to fry the taperich on the bridge,” the old soldier said gloomily, turning to his comrade, “you will forget to itch.”
And the soldier passed by. Behind him another soldier rode on a cart.
“Where the hell did you stuff the tucks?” - said the orderly, running after the cart and rummaging in the back.
And this one came with a cart. This was followed by cheerful and apparently drunk soldiers.
“How can he, dear man, blaze with the butt right in the teeth…” one soldier in a high-tucked greatcoat said joyfully, waving his hand widely.
- This is it, sweet ham is that. - answered the other with laughter.
And they passed, so Nesvitsky did not know who was hit in the teeth and what the ham was.
“They’re in such a hurry that he let out a cold one, so you think they’ll kill everyone.” - the non-commissioned officer said angrily and reproachfully.
“As soon as it flies past me, uncle, that cannonball,” said the young soldier, barely restraining laughter, with a huge mouth, “I froze.” Really, by God, I was so scared, it’s a disaster! - said this soldier, as if boasting that he was scared. And this one passed. Following him was a carriage, unlike any that had passed so far. It was a German steam-powered forshpan, loaded, it seemed, with a whole house; tied behind the forshpan that the German was carrying was a beautiful, motley cow with a huge udder. A woman was sitting on a feather bed with infant, an old woman and a young, purple-red, healthy German girl. Apparently, these evicted residents were allowed through with special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers turned to the women, and while the cart passed, moving step by step, all the soldiers' comments related only to two women. Almost the same smile of lewd thoughts about this woman was on all their faces.
- Look, the sausage is also removed!
“Sell mother,” another soldier said, emphasizing the last syllable, turning to the German, who, with his eyes downcast, walked angrily and fearfully with wide steps.
- How did you clean up! Damn it!
“If only you could stand with them, Fedotov.”
- You saw it, brother!
- Where are you going? - asked the infantry officer who was eating an apple, also half-smiling and looking at the beautiful girl.
The German, closing his eyes, showed that he did not understand.
“If you want, take it for yourself,” the officer said, handing the girl an apple. The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitsky, like everyone else on the bridge, did not take his eyes off the women until they passed. When they passed, the same soldiers walked again, with the same conversations, and finally everyone stopped. As often happens, at the exit of the bridge the horses in the company cart hesitated, and the entire crowd had to wait.
- And what do they become? There is no order! - said the soldiers. -Where are you going? Damn! There's no need to wait. Even worse, he will set the bridge on fire. “Look, the officer was locked in too,” the stopped crowds said from different sides, looking at each other, and still huddled forward towards the exit.
Looking under the bridge at the waters of Ens, Nesvitsky suddenly heard a sound that was still new to him, quickly approaching... something big and something plopping into the water.
- Look where it's going! – the soldier standing close said sternly, looking back at the sound.
“He’s encouraging them to pass quickly,” said another restlessly.
The crowd moved again. Nesvitsky realized that it was the core.
- Hey, Cossack, give me the horse! - he said. - Well you! stay away! step aside! way!
With great effort he reached the horse. Still screaming, he moved forward. The soldiers squeezed to give him way, but again they pressed on him again so that they crushed his leg, and those closest were not to blame, because they were pressed even harder.
- Nesvitsky! Nesvitsky! “You, madam!” a hoarse voice was heard from behind.
Nesvitsky looked around and saw, fifteen paces away, separated from him by a living mass of moving infantry, red, black, shaggy, with a cap on the back of his head and a brave mantle draped over his shoulder, Vaska Denisov.
“Tell them what to give to the devils,” he shouted. Denisov, apparently in a fit of ardor, shining and moving his coal-black eyes with inflamed whites and waving his unsheathed saber, which he held with a bare little hand as red as his face.
- Eh! Vasya! – Nesvitsky answered joyfully. - What are you talking about?
“Eskadg “onu pg” you can’t go,” shouted Vaska Denisov, angrily opening his white teeth, spurring his beautiful black, bloody Bedouin, who, blinking his ears from the bayonets he bumped into, snorting, spraying foam from the mouthpiece around him, ringing, he beat his hooves on the boards of the bridge and seemed ready to jump over the railings of the bridge if the rider would allow him. - What is this? like bugs! exactly like bugs! Pg "och... give dog" ogu!... Stay there! you're a wagon, chog"t! I'll kill you with a saber! - he shouted, actually taking out his saber and starting to wave it.
The soldiers with frightened faces pressed against each other, and Denisov joined Nesvitsky.
- Why aren’t you drunk today? - Nesvitsky said to Denisov when he drove up to him.
“And they won’t let you get drunk!” answered Vaska Denisov. “They’ve been dragging the regiment here and there all day long. It’s like that, it’s like that. Otherwise, who knows what it is!”
- What a dandy you are today! – Nesvitsky said, looking at his new mantle and saddle pad.
Denisov smiled, took out a handkerchief from his bag, which smelled of perfume, and stuck it in Nesvitsky’s nose.
- I can’t, I’m going to work! I got out, brushed my teeth and put on perfume.
The dignified figure of Nesvitsky, accompanied by a Cossack, and the determination of Denisov, waving his saber and shouting desperately, had such an effect that they squeezed onto the other side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Nesvitsky found a colonel at the exit, to whom he needed to convey the order, and, having fulfilled his instructions, went back.
Having cleared the road, Denisov stopped at the entrance to the bridge. Casually holding back the stallion rushing towards his own and kicking, he looked at the squadron moving towards him.
Transparent sounds of hooves were heard along the boards of the bridge, as if several horses were galloping, and the squadron, with officers in front, four in a row, stretched out along the bridge and began to emerge on the other side.
The stopped infantry soldiers, crowding in the trampled mud near the bridge, looked at the clean, dapper hussars marching harmoniously past them with that special unfriendly feeling of alienation and ridicule with which various branches of the army are usually encountered.
- Smart guys! If only it were on Podnovinskoye!
- What good are they? They just drive for show! - said another.
- Infantry, don't dust! - the hussar joked, under which the horse, playing, splashed mud at the infantryman.
“If I had driven you through two marches with your backpack, the laces would have been worn out,” the infantryman said, wiping the dirt from his face with his sleeve; - otherwise it’s not a person, but a bird sitting!
“If only I could put you on a horse, Zikin, if you were agile,” the corporal joked about the thin soldier, bent over from the weight of his backpack.
“Take the club between your legs, and you’ll have a horse,” responded the hussar.

The rest of the infantry hurried across the bridge, forming a funnel at the entrance. Finally, all the carts passed, the crush became less, and the last battalion entered the bridge. Only the hussars of Denisov's squadron remained on the other side of the bridge against the enemy. The enemy, visible in the distance from the opposite mountain, from below, from the bridge, was not yet visible, since from the hollow along which the river flowed, the horizon ended at the opposite elevation no more than half a mile away. Ahead there was a desert, along which here and there groups of our traveling Cossacks were moving. Suddenly, on the opposite hill of the road, troops in blue hoods and artillery appeared. These were the French. The Cossack patrol trotted away downhill. All the officers and men of Denisov’s squadron, although they tried to talk about outsiders and look around, did not stop thinking only about what was there on the mountain, and constantly peered at the spots on the horizon, which they recognized as enemy troops. The weather cleared again in the afternoon, the sun set brightly over the Danube and the dark mountains surrounding it. It was quiet, and from that mountain the sounds of horns and screams of the enemy could occasionally be heard. There was no one between the squadron and the enemies, except for small patrols. An empty space, three hundred fathoms, separated them from him. The enemy stopped shooting, and the more clearly one felt that strict, menacing, impregnable and elusive line that separates the two enemy troops.

For his deep, strong bass, critics call Denis Sedov a modern Chaliapin.

However, in my opinion, any comparisons in creativity are very superficial and a little ambiguous. Especially when we are talking about a person who is undeniably talented, extraordinary and versatile. And also incredibly charismatic and charming. And this is already a touch to the portrait, which is more human than creative...

You fall under the charm of Denis Sedov immediately and, as they say, without options. Resistance is pointless. And you're just feverishly trying to remember if there were any in mythology male characters, who led with the sounds of their voices. The hall was so enchanted when the vocalist sang from the stage of the Philharmonic. The journalists were so fascinated when Denis answered our questions.

With thoughts about fishing

– Denis, I heard you admit in one of your interviews that you are glad that you are a bass and not a tenor...

- Yes. Because being a bass suits my personality very well.

– And what is this special character of the bass?

– There is a lot on this topic different jokes. For example, when they compare what each of the voices thinks about during the performance of a piece. So, the baritone is about the soprano, the tenor is about money, and the bass is about the fishing trip he is going on after the performance. It's just that we basses are allowed much more on stage than other singers. This is due to physiology: we sing where we sound. And we don’t need to change our voices in order to hit sky-high notes, or watch the chords as much as, for example, tenors, who two or three days before going on stage are not allowed even a glass cold water drink up.

– Does this mean that life is so easy for bass and that no difficulties arise in the profession?

- Of course not. Maybe it’s easier for us compared to other voices. But in general, the profession has its fair share of difficulties, even for bassists. Because, firstly, this is a culture that no one ever has money for. And secondly, we are all at the forefront of the performance - we present ourselves without hiding behind any musical instrument. And who you are on stage today, how you sound, is how both the public and critics perceive you.

And if you also take into account the level modern technologies, which allow you to almost instantly post everything on the Internet... And if someone makes a mistake in the performance, is out of voice, the whole world will know about it in a couple of hours, and even with millions of views. You wouldn't wish this on anyone. But what to do, such a profession is not easy for anyone.

Ballet ticket

– I know that your entire childhood was spent behind the scenes. Mariinsky Theater…

- Yes. I was actually born on Glinka Street - literally three steps from the Mariinsky Theater, opposite St. Nicholas Cathedral. And my parents worked in the theater. They were not singers: dad worked in the administration, mom was a make-up artist. And, of course, I visited them often. I even remember, when I drew bunnies as a child, they always had ballet tutus on them - apparently, ballerinas made such an impression on me then. And they brought me to the performance for the first time in three years. And my grandmother kept that ticket in her theater binoculars as a souvenir of my first visit to the Mariinsky Theater.

– When did you realize that you wanted to sing? And sing the classics?

– When I saw the wonderful documentary film “Leningrad Nightingales” on TV. This is a picture about the St. Petersburg choir school named after Glinka, where boys from seven to eighteen years old study vocals, conducting and everything else that is associated with the profession of a musician. And I told my mother that I wanted to study there. By the way, last year my colleagues and the guys from Channel Five made a sequel to this film. There will be a presentation in the St. Petersburg chapel in April - we'll see what happens.

– How did you study?

- Wonderful. With a love of music and great responsibility. I remember my first tour very well. I was nine years old, and I, leaving my parents, grandmother and Peter, went with the guys to sing in Yaroslavl for five days... So I had a great time studying. The most difficult thing was probably to get in, because the competition was huge: 25 people per place. In general, many Mariinsky Theater vocalists and world-famous musicians who are in demand abroad graduated from this institution. I have a photograph of the choir, where we stand as ten-year-old boys - and through one we all became famous musicians.

Olympic Star

– We can say that you received your first dose of world fame during your performance at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Nagano. Tell us more about this.

– The singers were selected by conductor Seiji Ozawa, a brilliant Japanese musician who worked all his life in America, in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I then interned in the States, at the Metropolitan. And I was lucky that among the huge number of applicants, Seiji heard me and took me to work in his star team. After all, there were the first consoles from Vienna, Berlin, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Israel - a huge orchestra of outstanding musicians from all over the world.

Interestingly, they had certain clashes with each other when choosing execution touches. One could often hear: “We in Berlin have been playing this all our lives!” - “And we’re down in Vienna!” And then Seiji entered: “Friends, we have all gathered here peacefully. Therefore, I, your terrorist from Japan, will decide the strokes”...

– How did you feel during the performance itself?

– Of course, an event of this level is an additional excitement that adds to the constant excitement of the upcoming appearance on stage. However, when the first note is struck, all feelings not involved in singing fade into the background. In Japan we worked on camera, and the enormity of what was happening only became clear after the opening ceremony, when my friends from all over the world talked about how they saw me on the TV screen. And in Japan itself, for several days I felt like just a Hollywood star: literally everyone I met recognized me and took pictures of me.

For complete communication

– You know eight languages...

- Yes. I have been participating in opera productions in different countries. And each such work takes from three weeks up to two months. And language is part of the culture by which people live. It has always been important for me to understand the mentality of others, and without knowing the language this is impossible. How impossible it is to talk about our Russian culture. We not only stand on stage together, but also communicate a lot, share our feelings and emotions with each other...

I have a hobby - playing the guitar. At one time I even took the instrument with me. Then I stopped because I realized that a guitar can be found anywhere in the world. And at some parties, when you meet people, many play music and sing. And I also performed Russian songs with a guitar. And they always asked me: “What are you singing about?” Because our songs convey a lot in the words, in the lyrics, and not so much in the harmonic sense.

I explained, and then I got tired of it, and I just translated a few cult things into Italian, English or Portuguese so that everything would be immediately clear.

– We approached the question of music in life so smoothly, and not on stage...

– Sacred music plays a very important role in my life. Even living in the West, I went to church to sing on Easter. Now I have finally recorded a disc with the choir of St. Isaac's Cathedral. This has always been very important for me. And I remember well the first time I sang in church. It was in 1990 in the Smolny Cathedral, where I sang for the deacon in the liturgy of John Chrysostom...

There are several iconic Brazilian songs that I love very much. For example, "The Girl from Ipanema". In general, I really love Brazilian music - I play the guitar and write it myself. I have a project in St. Petersburg called “White Bossa” - maybe someday we’ll come to you on tour with this music.

– Or maybe you remember some stories related to music?

– My life has been connected with music since the age of five. Imagine how many stories there are! You can find your own for almost every piece of music. Because any opera aria evokes certain feelings. When you performed it for the first time, or met someone, or someone sang with you - that is, a lot of things...

Demonic Role

– Have you ever sung villains?

- Certainly. Bass is either priests or devils...

– They say that energetically these parts are very difficult to perform?

– In my opinion, this is a misconception. This is the same party as all the others. The opera was written by a man, it has two hundred pages - you sang the funeral service, took off your makeup, left the theater, and that’s it. Another thing is that Gounod’s Mephistophilis game is very complicated. And Boito’s same part is even more difficult, so this opera is practically not performed at all. Three and a half hours on stage, voice range of two and a half octaves.

This was the most difficult part I have ever sung, but it has nothing to do with energy. So I think it's just that people often give the wrong reason when they refuse to sing. Who admits that they can’t sing because they can’t stand it? It’s easier to refer to bad energy.

– Can you describe your viewer?

– It is different in all countries. But, probably, the unifying features will be: love for music and the joy of communicating with it, a willingness to perceive something new and a desire to hear familiar works.

***

Denis Sedov was born in St. Petersburg. Graduated with honors from the M. I. Glinka Choir School Singing Chapel St. Petersburg and the vocal department of the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem. After completing the latter, he trained for two years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Denis's first professional performance took place in 1993 at a festival in Ludwigsburg, where he sang a concert of contemporary music with an orchestra. The vocalist became widely known for his performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at the ceremony opening XVIII winter Olympic Games in Nagano.

As a guest soloist, he takes part in productions of the world's leading opera houses: New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala, Paris Grand Opera, London's Covent Garden.

Sings in theaters in San Francisco, Barcelona, ​​Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Tel Aviv and others.

Opera jokes, modern music and bossa nova. A famous opera singer talks about all this Denis Sedov.

Ts.: What do you think about while singing?

– Singing is a very fast mental activity; if the singer is good and the person himself is not a complete idiot, then a whole train of thoughts flashes through his head in a second. The main thing is that the trailers do not collide and go off the rails. To prevent this from happening, you need to concentrate before going on stage in the wings, give it to your inner world a couple of minutes and after that - all yourself to the music and through it to the viewer. There may be different thoughts at the head of the team. Depending on the singer’s musical preparedness, these may be the words of the new work being performed; Some especially gifted musicians count beats silently in their heads. You can think about vocals, if it matters: at some point in your career, the voice sounds good and the singing, that is, the sound-producing part of it, reaches automaticity, but sometimes the singer has to think about every note he sings. After this, you can think about musicality, artistry, and the semantic content of the work. If singing occurs during opera performance, then you need to remember to look at the conductor (he may be offended if you don’t look at him at all) and also remember all the ingenious discoveries of modern directors, which sometimes run counter to what the composer wrote and have nothing to do with the intended action. And then there are fellow singers, the acoustics of the theater, hiccups and everything human, including a beautiful woman in short skirt in the front row, which can break into the thought process while singing.

Ts.: Do you study the character in any way? Or just within the framework of a specific opera?

– The character study consists of a musical part, which you begin immediately after you sign a certain contract. You learn the tune and read the libretto - accordingly, first your own role, because it’s interesting what’s written there for you next, and then you look at the other parts and understand how what’s happening on stage is shaping up.

If you are lucky and a sensible stage director comes across the debut of an opera role with his useful thoughts and advice, then this greatly helps to lay the cornerstone in creating a character that will change, enrich and grow from production to production, if, of course, the people of the theater like your first performance and you will be invited to another theater to play the same role. The same applies to the conductor, and in this tandem (singer - conductor - director) something worthwhile can be born, and if all three members of the tandem are great people in their profession, then something unique is born.

Ts.: Is it true that in group scenes the extras talk when they’re not singing?

– In an opera house, it’s usually the choir who chatters, not the extras, and even then only during rehearsals, if it’s a decent theater. And so, of course, in a large crowd of people, when the mouth is not busy and everyone knows each other, it’s a sin not to communicate while the tenor is strangling the soprano!

Ts.: Do the artists tease each other, are there any gags or jokes during the performance? For example, rock musicians either smear garlic on a microphone or glue the keys on a synthesizer with tape.

– Usually in opera it is customary to joke at the last performance in a series, after which all the invited singers go home and are out of reach of the management’s retribution and the theater’s repressions. Depending on the theater, they joke differently. They can put on a long nose to make their colleagues laugh, or insert the word “Tampax” into an aria. And there are even cooler ones - for example, a nail driven from below into the throne of Tsar Boris, so that he could sit on it during the performance - and his pants are full of blood. Or boots nailed to the floor during a quick change of clothes in the wings - you put both feet in and your nose to the floor! They joke in different ways, in different ways...

Ts.: What do you think about modern non-opera music? What do you prefer to listen to (if you prefer, of course)? Or just opera?

I never really liked music from the American-English market, except maybe a little, around 14-15 years old. Not U2, not Elton John, not George Michael, or even Michael Jackson, Beatles or Elvis Presley... Well, I was not fanatical about listening to all this, just like Russian pop music. Although I got acquainted with the work of almost all the “greats” - from Billy Evans to Tom Waits, and Pink Floyd with Led Zeppelin. But since my first trip to Brazil and, of course, during my life there, I became acquainted with the whole universe of Brazilian music: dozens of brilliant composers and songwriters, Brazilian folk music (in simple terms - samba) - melody, rhythm, harmonic exuberance - everything I'm attracted to her. I learned to play this music and now I even perform on the professional stage, performing songs on Portuguese in your favorite bossa nova style. I will name only three names out of a hundred - these are Tom Jobim, Joao Gilberto and Caetano Veloso.

Ts.: On what opera stages around the world (not in Russia) have you worked? What are the differences between different schools opera singing?

– I have worked in forty countries and sung about a hundred productions abroad - in Asia, Europe, South and North America. Almost all major or major theaters are active. In the period of general globalization and in the era of records and the Internet, it seems to me that the issue of different schools has disappeared, as well as the virtual boundaries between the cultures of different countries. It used to be that, having sailed by boat to Italy or arrived on stage in Russia, people could hear other singers for the first time and say to themselves: “Wow! They sing completely differently here!” And now any sound, scratch or kick made by someone in Argentina can be heard in Japan on YouTube an hour later. And, of course, by listening and comparing, people learn better. Today there are no schools - today there is correct or incorrect singing. Plus, of course, the soul, which sings differently in different countries.

Ts.: Would you like to take part (or have you already taken part?) in some opera experiments, when these are not classical productions, but something new?

– I took part in the first production of the modern opera “Three Sisters” after Chekhov - I sang the part of Solyony. It was a very unusual performance created through the efforts of Japanese directors. The concept of the opera was to use elements of kabuki and Japanese plastic theater butoh. All female roles were performed by made-up countertenors (male soprano), and the costumes were created in the atelier of designer Kenzo. This production toured extensively. There is a record and video.

Ts.: What do you like most about your profession? What does it feel like to be opera singer?

– In my profession I like to sing. This is a calling! It is impossible to stop doing this if you still can. This is theater and its magic! An artistic entrance, dressing rooms, backstage, an empty hall and a stage two hours before the performance... This is an audience that expects a miracle every moment, a huge injection of adrenaline and an exchange of energy with the audience. On stage you forget about everything except the stage. This is indescribable! Any pains of the artist recede under the spotlight. And this is also the magic of theater. And, of course, traveling around the world. One of my friends said to me in response to my whining about frequent travel: “Denis, why do people want to win the lottery? What do they want to spend the money on? To travel! How are you! And they also pay you for it!” Of course, it's wonderful to be a singer, but don't forget that at the same time it's incredibly difficult because of the rhythm of life in which we live.

Ts.: Which of the modern (not old) opera singers seems the best to you?

– I like my colleague - bass from Germany Rene Pape. I sing with him in August.

Ts.: What was the biggest challenge in your career?

– The biggest challenge was learning to sing correctly and finding a teacher. It is very difficult for young singers to find the truth in this sea of ​​advice, teachers, and assistants. This is the most difficult and most important thing - to find your voice so that it serves for many years.

Ts.: What question would you ask yourself?

– I ask myself the same question: a bass career lasts 45 years - how can I bear another 25 years? :)))

Interviewed by Anna Samofalova.

Lua error in Module:Wikidata on line 170: attempt to index field "wikibase" (a nil value).

Lua error in Module:Wikidata on line 170: attempt to index field "wikibase" (a nil value).

Lua error in Module:Wikidata on line 170: attempt to index field "wikibase" (a nil value).

Lua error in Module:Wikidata on line 170: attempt to index field "wikibase" (a nil value).

Lua error in Module:Wikidata on line 170: attempt to index field "wikibase" (a nil value).

Denis Borisovich Sedov(born 1974) - Russian opera singer (bass-baritone).

As a guest soloist, he takes part in productions of the world's leading opera houses (Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Grand Opera, Covent Garden, theaters in San Francisco, Barcelona, ​​Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Tel Aviv, Japan and China). The artist sings in such genres as: classical opera, bossa nova, samba.

Biography

At the age of 6, having seen a documentary about the school of singers at the Leningrad Chapel named after M. I. Glinka: “Leningrad Nightingales,” he decided to connect his career with the choir. 11 years later, Denis graduated with honors from the M. I. Glinka Choral School at the St. Petersburg Singing Chapel in choral conducting and went to enroll in the conducting department at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Rubin, but accidentally missed the exam. In order not to lose a whole year of study, Denis decided to enroll in the vocal department there.

In 1993, Denis's first professional performance took place at the Ludwigsburg Festival, where he sang a concert of contemporary music with an orchestra.

In 1995, he was invited to participate in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera (New York), where he trained for 2 years with such opera legends as Renata Scotto, Louis Quilico, Regine Crispin, Carlo Bergonzi.

The singer became widely known for his performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at the opening ceremony of the 18th Winter Olympic Games in 1998 in Nagano.

Denis Sedov sang with such stars as: Placido Domingo, Yo-Yo Ma, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Muti, Nikolai Gyaurov, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Nani Bregvadze. The singer collaborated with several well-known record labels: Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, Naxos.

International career

Career in Russia

Denis Sedov conducts extensive touring activities not only abroad. Russian listeners in about eighty cities from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Murmansk and Vorkuta, from Tyumen and Kazan to Irkutsk, Chita, Vladivostok and Sakhalin were able to hear the singer’s voice on the stages of their philharmonic societies and opera houses.

Bossa nova & Samba

The singer plans to work in several original projects at once. First of all, the show program “Around the World with a Balalaika” with the Bis-Kvit ensemble, as well as a program of Brazilian popular music - bossa nova and samba - “White Bossa Project” in a chamber composition.

Videos

• - “The Coronation of Poppea” by Claudio Monteverdi (Seneca), dir. Klaus Michael Grüber, dir. Mark Minkowski, Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival.

Write a review of the article "Sedov, Denis Borisovich"

Notes

Links

Excerpt characterizing Sedov, Denis Borisovich

February 2015

Bass in the theater, in life and in church

In February, at the Chaliapin Festival at the Philharmonic, you will be able to hear Denis Sedov sing, a singer endowed by nature with a deep, very in a powerful voice and no less bright personality. He knows how to be very different. When you hear Russians folk songs in his performance, it seems that he is singing as a natural singer, but deeply feeling Russian music to his very core. The baroque aria in his performance sounds easy, masterly, absolutely European. Then it turns out that his repertoire also includes rock music and bossa nova, and that he really loves Russian spiritual chants.

— You have a very wide range of interests - you are an opera singer, but you also perform pop music and are fond of Latin American styles. These are completely different styles of singing - don’t they interfere with each other?
— Singing is the most harmonious form of performance. These are vibrations that are born inside a person; There is no barrier between the singer and the listener in the form of an instrument. In this sense, there are no different styles of singing, there are different individuals. The manner may be correct or incorrect, the voice may be correct or not. If an artist has perfect command of his voice, then he will be able to perform any genre, like Magomayev, for example.

— Bass is not such a “star” role as tenor. Did your passion for popular genres arise from a desire to be closer to the public? Or is it purely musical interest?
— A tenor is a very specific creature, and I am very glad that I am not a tenor. Being a bass suits my personality very well (although maybe it’s the voice that develops this or that character in a singer). A high, piercing soprano can make a singer unbearable, and singing loud high notes in a tenor causes a rush of blood to the brain, he sees circles before his eyes, and gets lost in music and in life. Velvety baritones look amorously at themselves in the mirror, listening to their magical timbre, and the basses come from fishing to the theater and, having cleared their throats backstage a couple of times, come out to sing the parts of kings and devils.

— If an instrumentalist can improve throughout his life, then the voice is given by nature. He either exists or he doesn’t. What is the professional development of a singer? Are there goals that are not yet available to you, but that you would like to achieve?
— To become a successful opera singer and make an international career, today it is not enough to have a voice. It is important to be an educated musician, be able to communicate with different people, have an excellent memory, and speak several languages. You will also have to expose your health to the stress of many hours of flights and acclimatization, and do all this to the detriment of your family and children, whom you may not be able to see often because of the tour.

The most important factor is to constantly stay in shape through classes with a vocal teacher (even after 20 years of a career), classes with a tutor to help you learn new parts, and simply working at home.

A singer, like any other professional musician, develops throughout his life, even to some extent more than others, since over the years his instrument becomes stronger and grows in volume, which cannot be said about clarinetists or pianists. The singer's repertoire is also related to the strength and volume of the voice. My goals are related specifically to expanding my repertoire.

I don't have access to magic, but if I were a wizard, I would make sure that non-singing people never give singing advice to singers. Neither in singing, nor in diet, nor in the method of treating sore throat.

— What is your very first vivid impression of music?
- When I was in kindergarten near Pushkin, I got a sore throat and missed a lot of rehearsals music festival, which was preparing for February 23 and March 8. When I came to kindergarten after illness, the teacher did not allow me to perform with other children. I was very worried. But then the nanny gave me spoons out of pity, and I performed a virtuoso solo on them, showing an extraordinary sense of rhythm. After that I was allowed to play in a mini-orchestra senior group, and I turned out to be a very necessary link, since I was good at hitting the first beat, which the orchestra could not do. For this they gave me the song “Don’t be afraid, Mom, I’m with you” to sing. I came forward and sang all two verses about an armored personnel carrier and something else... I remember my young parents in the audience at the concert. This was my first music.

— What is the most difficult thing in the profession and the most difficult thing in life?
— The most difficult thing in the profession is to constantly prove your ability to work, to constantly be collected. And for “free artists” like me, it’s a search for work and the unknown of tomorrow. You get used to it, but it always lives in your mind. Our life is our profession, our roles, suffered and endured with great difficulty.

— What would you do if you weren’t a musician?
— If not music, then probably architecture. I really like to draw houses, palaces and cathedrals.

— You left Russia quite early, and almost 20 years later you decided to return. What was the impetus for the first and second decisions?
— The impetus for leaving was the very opportunity to travel and study in the West. In the nineties there was a smell of freedom. I went and lived in four countries in 20 years and saw forty more. When there was nothing left to hold me there, I began to go on visits to St. Petersburg. I liked it, my friends persuaded me, and I returned - to the same street in the center where I grew up. Now I travel around the world from here.

— You perform sacred music at concerts, do you have a desire to sing in church during services? In Russian sacred music there is simply freedom for the bass...
— Thanks to my classmate Lev Dunaev, I came to . He is a regent, a wonderful musician and conductor. Lev told me about the services and invited me to sing. And now, when I come to St. Petersburg, I always sing the All-Night Vigil and Liturgy in St. Isaac’s Cathedral. They honor me and let me sing solo.

Spiritual singing is the most exciting thing for me. I grew up with this music as a musician and performed it a lot when we had the opportunity to reconnect with church services in the late 1980s. I really missed her in the West, and as soon as I returned, I began to make up for lost time. Returning to my dreams, one of the biggest is to record a disc of sacred music with a choir. I would like to do something special, bright, something that will help and calm, confirm faith and bring joy to those who hear this music.

For example, at Easter I sang in Seattle at Orthodox Cathedral, and the priest gave me an icon with gratitude from the flock and clergy. That is, they treated my music playing very kindly. In many other cities I was also able to sing in churches - in Vancouver, in New York... Sometimes I was offered money for singing abroad, but I always refused. But most often I don’t just come to church to sing. Here in St. Petersburg I always sing with my friends and colleagues who came to the Church in different ways.

— Do you remember the first time you came to the temple?
— I went with my grandmother to the building opposite which I was born. In my memory, it was always active. And I remember when they celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia in 1988 (and I lived on Glinka Street at that time), I saw a procession of the cross from my window for the first time.

“I think that music in the temple is a step to enlightenment, to holiness, to prayer. It is a help in immersing yourself in prayer. So that the world from which you came to the temple is left behind.”

— Do you agree that song culture in Russia has declined?
- Of course, you can’t make money with music, so no one is interested in it...

“Mothers don’t know how to sing lullabies, schools are reducing the number of music lessons, adults have stopped singing at the table...
- Well, I know people who still sing for festive table. But about general trend- I think that this is generally due to the decline of the intelligentsia. Because when it is allowed a little, there is always a surge of culture in Russia, just like in the 19th century. Cultural figures of that time created the basis on which the art of the first half of the twentieth century was created. And with the disappearance of the intelligentsia as a social class in the Soviet Union, this culture may actually have declined. But in the situation we are in now, in which there is no way to make money from music, few people become musicians.

In fact, art is a calling. And the one who was called by God to do this, he will do it, no matter what. And he will teach his children to sing, just as I teach my son. And it turns out that today there are enough singers whose children sing and know the service, and continue to carry on both art and prayer.