Interesting facts about Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin
Konstantin Korovin. Gallery of paintings and drawings by the artist - Portrait of F.I. Chaliapin. 1911
Should you listen to your elders?
Fyodor Chaliapin's father definitely had an opinion about his son's acting hobbies. He told him:
- You should go to the janitors, well, to the janitors, and not to the theater. You have to be a janitor, and you will have a piece of bread...
Don't get in your own sleigh
Fifteen-year-old Chaliapin turned to the management of the theater in Kazan with a request to audition him and accept him into the choir. But due to a mutation in his voice, he sang extremely poorly during the audition. Instead of Chaliapin, they accepted a lanky nineteen-year-old guy into the choir, with a monstrous “cursing” speech. Chaliapin remembered his first fiasco for the rest of his life, but he hated this lanky competitor for a long time. Years later, in Nizhny Novgorod, Chaliapin met Maxim Gorky, to whom he told about his first failure as a singer. Having heard the story, Gorky laughed:
- Dear Fedenka, it was me! True, I was soon kicked out of the choir, because I had no voice at all.
Debut
Fyodor Ivanovich's debut on the opera stage was very original. Chaliapin at that time was the main extra in the theater. He was assigned the silent role of the cardinal, who had to solemnly proceed across the entire stage, accompanied by his retinue. Before going on stage for the first time in his life, Chaliapin was so nervous that his legs and arms were shaking. He spent a long time explaining to the clueless junior extras their duties, secretly anticipating how the audience would gasp at their majestic procession.
- Follow me and do everything the same as I do! - he ordered his retinue and went on stage. As soon as he took a step, Chaliapin in his excitement stepped on the edge of his long red robe and fell straight to the floor! The retinue accompanying the cardinal decided that... it was necessary, and also fell! The chief extra heroically tried to get to his feet and extricate himself from the wide robe - it was useless. Floundering in the cardinal's vestments, he crawled on all fours across the entire stage! And behind him, also trembling convulsively, crawled his retinue!
The audience laughed until they started laughing! As soon as Fyodor Ivanovich was backstage, the enraged director grabbed him and threw him down the stairs, giving the future decoration of the Russian stage a good kick in the ass.
"Now I'll lean on..."
Chaliapin recalled with humor the peculiar method of “training” his voice, which was used by his teacher D.A. Usatov. Hearing that his voice was beginning to weaken, he hit the student in the chest with a backhand and shouted:
- Lean on, damn you! Lean on!.
But Chaliapin did not understand what and with what he had to “rely”...
“It was only a long time later that he finally explained to me that it was necessary to base the sound on the breath, to concentrate it...” Chaliapin said with a laugh, having already become a great singer.
Don't you want to croak? fine!
Once Chaliapin was sick with “angina pectoris” and refused to sing in two performances. For this, the director of the theater fined Fyodor Ivanovich and argued the imposition of the fine as follows:
- In our performances, many artists on stage simply croak, why can’t Chaliapin sing with the “toad”? He would fit in well with the general choir...
Ostrich in a cage
In 1901, Chaliapin toured at La Scala as a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. He responded to his first foreign tour with an autoepigram, successfully paraphrasing the poems of Lermontov and Griboedov:
I'm here in Milan - an ostrich in a cage
(In Milan, ostriches are so rare);
Milan is going to watch,
How the Russian ostrich will sing,
And I sing, and the sounds melt away,
But the caps are not in the air
Here, as in Russia, they don’t abandon people.
Yes, I'm not talking about that!
Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was always indignant at people who consider the artist’s work easy.
“They remind me,” said the singer, “of one cabman who once drove me around Moscow:
- And you, master, what are you doing? - asks.
- Yes, I’m singing.
- That's not what I'm talking about. I ask, what are you working on? Singing is what we all sing. And I sing when I get bored. I ask: what are you doing?
45 interesting and curious facts about Fyodor Chaliapin 1. Russian singer Fyodor Chaliapin captivated audiences in many countries during his life. 2. Born in the Russian Empire and who became famous during the USSR, he lived a decent life, and no one has yet been able to surpass his talent. His amazing high bass thundered through the best opera halls in Europe. 3. Fyodor Chaliapin made an invaluable contribution to the development of opera. His repertoire includes over 50 roles played in classical operas, over 400 songs, romances and Russian folk songs. 4. Fyodor Chaliapin was the first people's artist of our country. 5. His ancestors bore the surname “Shelepin”. Over time, it transformed into the form known to all of us. 6. Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was born on November 1, 1873 in Kazan into a peasant family originally from the Vyatka province. They lived poorly, their father served as a scribe in the zemstvo council, often drank, raised his hand against his wife and children, and over the years his addiction worsened. 7. Despite all life circumstances, Fyodor Chaliapin forever entered world opera history. 8. Fedor studied at Vedernikova’s private school, but he was expelled for kissing a classmate. Then there were parochial and vocational schools, he left the latter due to his mother’s serious illness. This was the end of Chaliapin's government education. 9. Even before college, Fyodor was assigned to his godfather to learn shoemaking. “But fate did not destined me to be a shoemaker,” the singer recalled. 10. One day Fyodor heard choral singing in a church, and it fascinated him. He asked to join the choir, and regent Shcherbinin accepted him. 9-year-old Chaliapin had an ear and a beautiful voice - treble, and the regent taught him how to read music and paid him a salary. 11. At the age of 12, Chaliapin went to the theater for the first time - to the “Russian Wedding”. From that moment on, the theater “drove Chaliapin crazy” and became his passion for the rest of his life. Already in Parisian emigration in 1932, he wrote: “Everything that I will remember and tell will be ... connected with my theatrical life. I’m going to judge people and phenomena... as an actor, from an actor’s point of view...” 12. When the opera came to Kazan, it, according to Fyodor, amazed him. Chaliapin really wanted to look behind the scenes, and he made his way behind the stage. He was hired as an extra “for a nickel.” The career of a great opera singer was still far away. Ahead were the breaking of his voice, moving to Astrakhan, a hungry life and a return to Kazan. 13. Chaliapin's first solo performance - the part of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin" - took place at the end of March 1890. In September, he moved to Ufa as a choir member, where he became a soloist, replacing a sick artist. The debut of the 17-year-old Chaliapin in the opera Pebble was appreciated and occasionally he was assigned small roles. But the theater season ended, and Chaliapin again found himself without work and without money. He played passing roles, wandered, and in despair even thought about suicide. 14. Friends helped me and advised me to take lessons from Dmitry Usatov, a former artist of the imperial theaters. For a year, Chaliapin lived in Tbilisi, where he was taught singing by the then famous singer Dmitry Usatov. Moreover, the teacher gave him lessons for free, since Fedor did not have money to pay for training. Usatov not only learned famous operas with him, but also taught him the basics of etiquette. He introduced the newcomer to the musical circle, and soon to the Lyubimov Opera, already under contract. Having successfully performed over 60 performances, Chaliapin went to Moscow and then to St. Petersburg. 15. Chaliapin meets the famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov, who offers him a position as a soloist at the Russian Private Opera. In 1896, the artist moved to Moscow and successfully performed for four seasons, improving his repertoire and skills. F. I. Chaliapin in his youth 16. Since 1899, Chaliapin has been in the troupe of the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow and has enjoyed success with the public. He is received with delight at the La Scala theater in Milan, where Chaliapin performed in the guise of Mephistopheles. The success was amazing, offers began pouring in from all over the world. Chaliapin conquers Paris and London with Diaghilev, Germany, America, South America, and becomes a world famous artist. 17. In Russia, Chaliapin became famous for the bass parts of Borisov Godunov, Ivan the Terrible, and Mephistopheles. Not only is he great 18. At the age of 22, Fyodor Chaliapin was already performing on the stage of the famous Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. After the successful role of Mephistopheles in Faust, Chaliapin was invited to audition for the Mariinsky Theater and was enrolled in the troupe for three years. Chaliapin gets the role of Ruslan in Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, but critics wrote that Chaliapin sang “badly” and he remained without roles for a long time. 19. Fyodor Chaliapin’s father had a definite opinion about his son’s acting hobbies. He told him: “You should go to the janitors, to the janitors, and not to the theater.” You have to be a janitor, and you will have a piece of bread. 20. In 1918, Chaliapin became the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater (having refused the position of artistic director at the Bolshoi Theater) and received the first title of “People’s Artist of the Republic” in Russia. Fyodor Chaliapin with his family 21. Fyodor Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had 9 children. The singer met his first wife, Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi, at the Mamontov Theater. In 1898 they got married, and in this marriage Chaliapin had six children, one of whom died at an early age. After the revolution, Iola Tornaghi lived in Russia for a long time, and only in the late 50s she moved to Rome at the invitation of her son. 22. While married, in 1910 Fyodor Chaliapin became close to Maria Petzold, who raised two children from her first marriage. The first marriage had not yet been dissolved, but in fact the singer had a second family in Petrograd. In this marriage, Chaliapin had three daughters, but the couple was able to formalize their relationship already in Paris in 1927. Fyodor Chaliapin spent the last years of his life with Maria. 23. Despite the fact that Chaliapin sympathized with the revolution from a young age, he and his family did not escape emigration. The new government confiscated the artist’s house, car, and bank savings. He tried to protect his family and theater from attacks, and repeatedly met with the country's leaders, including Lenin and Stalin, but this only helped temporarily. 24. In 1922, Chaliapin and his family left Russia and toured Europe and America. In 1927, the Council of People's Commissars deprived him of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to his homeland. According to one version, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from the concert to the children of emigrants, and in the USSR this gesture was regarded as support for the White Guards. 25. The Chaliapin family settles in Paris, and it is there that the opera singer will find his final refuge. 26. In 1901, Chaliapin toured at La Scala as a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater. He responded to his first foreign tour with an auto-epigram, successfully paraphrasing the poems of Lermontov and Griboyedov: Here in Milan I am an ostrich in a cage (In Milan, ostriches are so rare); Milan is getting ready to watch the Russian ostrich sing, And I sing, and the sounds melt away, But caps are by no means thrown into the air Here, as in Russia, they don’t throw them. 27. Chaliapin, having come on tour to the USA, had to undergo inspection at New York customs. In line with the official who was inspecting the luggage, he was recognized. “This is the famous Chaliapin,” someone said, “he has a golden throat... Hearing such a remark, the customs official demanded that an x-ray of the “golden throat” be immediately taken. 28. During the revolution, Chaliapin’s house was often subject to night searches. They were looking for diamonds and gold. One day, silver spoons and forks were confiscated, as well as two hundred bottles of French wine. Chaliapin complained to Zinoviev: “I understand it’s a revolution... And, in essence, I’m not against searches, but is it possible to search me at a time convenient for me, from eight to nineteen, for example?” 29. During the revolution, Chaliapin came to the artist Korovin: - I was obliged to perform today in front of mounted sailors. Tell me, for God's sake, what are mounted sailors? “I don’t know what mounted sailors are,” Korovin answered gloomily, “but we have to leave.” 30. Once Chaliapin was sick with “angina pectoris” and refused to sing in two performances. For this, the director of the theater fined Fyodor Ivanovich and argued the imposition of the fine as follows: - In our performances, many artists on stage simply croak, why can’t Chaliapin sing with a “toad”? He would fit right into the general choir. 31. Once, at the dawn of his opera career, Chaliapin missed a chair on stage and awkwardly sat down straight on the floor. Since then, all his life he carefully watched where he sat. 32. In his youth, Chaliapin once disrupted a performance by getting entangled in a fluffy robe and collapsing on stage. The audience laughed so much that the concert actually had to be suspended. 33. Chaliapin was a wonderful draftsman and tried his hand at painting. Many of his works have survived, including “Self-Portrait”. He also tried himself in sculpture. 34. Chaliapin was friends with the famous writer Maxim Gorky. 35. Leo Tolstoy, after listening to several folk songs performed by Fyodor Chaliapin, said that he “sings too loudly.” 36. After touring in China, Japan, and America, Chaliapin returned to Paris in May 1937, already ill. Doctors make a diagnosis of leukemia. 37. “I’m lying... in bed... reading... and remembering the past: theaters, cities, hardships and successes... How many roles I played! And it seems not bad. Here’s a Vyatka peasant for you...” wrote Chaliapin in December 1937 to his daughter Irina. 38. The great artist passed away on April 12, 1938. 39. The singer died in Paris, where he was buried. And only in 1984, after 46 years, through the efforts of his son, the ashes of Fyodor Chaliapin were returned to the USSR and reburied in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery. 40.In 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, 53 years after his death, Fyodor Chaliapin was returned to the title of People's Artist. 41. Semyon Budyonny, after meeting Chaliapin in the carriage and drinking a bottle of champagne with him, recalled: “His mighty bass seemed to make the whole carriage tremble.” 42. Chaliapin collected weapons. Old pistols, rifles, spears, mostly donated by A.M. Gorky, hung on his walls. The house committee either took away his collection, then, at the direction of the deputy chairman of the Cheka, returned it. 43. Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements and contributions to music. 44. “The great Chaliapin was a reflection of the divided Russian reality: a tramp and an aristocrat, a family man and a “runner”, a wanderer, a regular at restaurants...” - this is what his teacher Dmitry Usatov said about the world-famous artist. 45. Chaliapin conducted his tours almost all over the world. He even had tours in the USA, Japan and China, not to mention almost all European countries.
As a child, Fyodor Chaliapin could not even imagine that he would someday become a great singer. His father, Ivan Yakovlevich, stubbornly convinced his son that the best way to earn his living was not to sing songs, but to get a job as a janitor.
The parents baptized their son Fyodor the very next day after his birth. The child was so frail that his mother and father feared his imminent death.
As a child, Fedya sang in a church in the city of Kazan, where a regent he knew assigned him. When the boy was given his first fee (one and a half rubles), he was very surprised to learn that you could also get money for singing!
At the age of fifteen, young Fedya Chaliapin tried to join the choir of the Kazan Theater. But, I didn't pass the audition. Instead they took some tall, thin guy. Years later, Fyodor Ivanovich told the writer Maxim Gorky about his failure. He laughed and remembered that it was he who was Chaliapin’s competitor. True, the future writer did not last long in the theater; he was kicked out of the choir, since he could not sing at all.
One day Fyodor Ivanovich hired a cab driver in Moscow. During the conversation, the man asked what Chaliapin was doing. - Yes, I’m singing. - And I sing when I'm bored. What is your job?
Chaliapin was a passionate weapons collector. The walls of his house were decorated with guns, pistols, and sabers. After the revolution, the collection was confiscated, but soon, on the instructions of the Cheka, it was returned. It was the passion for weapons that helped Chaliapin defend himself from the robber. One night a criminal entered Chaliapin's dacha in Sochi. The artist pulled out a revolver and killed him with a shot in the heart. The attacker turned out to be a local beggar. He had a stick in his hands, but Chaliapin assured that in the dark he mistook it for a gun.
In 1922, Chaliapin decided to leave Soviet Russia. But he retained the title of People's Artist for another 5 years. Only in 1927 did the USSR government deprive him of the opportunity to return to the country. The thing is that the singer gave his fee for one of the concerts to the children of Russian emigrants. Chaliapin was accused of supporting the enemies of the Soviet Union.
During his tour of the United States, Chaliapin underwent inspection at customs in New York. One of the fans standing in line shouted loudly: “This is Chaliapin! He has a golden throat! The customs officers interpreted this “compliment” in their own way: they forced the singer to take an X-ray of his throat.
They say that it was largely thanks to Chaliapin that caviar became popular in Europe. He loved to drink a shot of vodka and eat it with a sandwich with caviar. Many admirers of Chaliapin's talent began to do the same.
Chaliapin was not only a great singer, but also a talented painter and sculptor. Many of his paintings and several sculptures have survived.
On April 12, 1938, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin died in Paris and was buried at the local Batignolles cemetery. Only in 1984 did the singer’s reburial ceremony take place at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery.
“The great Chaliapin was a reflection of the divided Russian reality: a tramp and an aristocrat, a family man and a “runner,” a wanderer, a regular at restaurants...” - this is what his teacher Dmitry Usatov said about the world-famous artist. Despite all life circumstances, Fyodor Chaliapin forever entered world opera history.
Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin born on February 13 (old style - February 1), 1873 in Kazan into a peasant family originally from the Vyatka province. They lived poorly, their father served as a scribe in the zemstvo council, often drank, raised his hand against his wife and children, and over the years his addiction worsened.
Fedor studied at Vedernikova’s private school, but he was expelled for kissing a classmate. Then there were parochial and vocational schools, he left the latter due to his mother’s serious illness. This was the end of Chaliapin's government education. Even before college, Fyodor was assigned to his godfather to learn shoemaking. “But fate did not destined me to be a shoemaker,” the singer recalled.
One day Fyodor heard choral singing in a church, and it captivated him. He asked to join the choir, and regent Shcherbinin accepted him. 9-year-old Chaliapin had an ear and a beautiful voice - treble, and the regent taught him how to read music and paid him a salary.
At the age of 12, Chaliapin first went to the theater - to the “Russian Wedding”. From that moment on, the theater “drove Chaliapin crazy” and became his passion for the rest of his life. Already in Parisian emigration in 1932, he wrote: “Everything that I will remember and tell will be ... connected with my theatrical life. I’m going to judge people and phenomena... as an actor, from an actor’s point of view...”
When the opera came to Kazan, according to Fyodor, it amazed him. Chaliapin really wanted to look behind the scenes, and he made his way behind the stage. He was hired as an extra “for a nickel.” The career of a great opera singer was still far away. Ahead were the breaking of his voice, moving to Astrakhan, a hungry life and a return to Kazan.
Chaliapin's first solo performance - the role of Zaretsky in the opera "Eugene Onegin" - took place at the end of March 1890. In September, he moved to Ufa as a choir member, where he became a soloist, replacing a sick artist. The debut of the 17-year-old Chaliapin in the opera Pebble was appreciated and occasionally he was assigned small roles. But the theater season ended, and Chaliapin again found himself without work and without money. He played passing roles, wandered, and in despair even thought about suicide.
Friends helped me and advised me to take lessons from Dmitry Usatov, a former artist of the imperial theaters. Usatov not only learned famous operas with him, but also taught him the basics of etiquette. He introduced the newcomer to the musical circle, and soon to the Lyubimov Opera, already under contract. Having successfully performed over 60 performances, Chaliapin went to Moscow and then to St. Petersburg. After the successful role of Mephistopheles in Faust, Chaliapin was invited to audition for the Mariinsky Theater and was enrolled in the troupe for three years. Chaliapin gets the role of Ruslan in Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, but critics wrote that Chaliapin sang “badly” and he remained without roles for a long time.
But Chaliapin meets a famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov, who offers him a place as a soloist at the Russian Private Opera. In 1896, the artist moved to Moscow and successfully performed for four seasons, improving his repertoire and skills.
Since 1899, Chaliapin has been in the troupe of the Imperial Russian Opera in Moscow and enjoys success with the public. He is received with delight at the La Scala theater in Milan, where Chaliapin performed in the guise of Mephistopheles. The success was amazing, offers began pouring in from all over the world. Chaliapin conquers Paris and London with Diaghilev, Germany, America, South America, and becomes a world famous artist.
In 1918, Chaliapin became the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater (having refused the position of artistic director at the Bolshoi Theater) and received the first title of “People's Artist of the Republic” in Russia.
Despite the fact that Chaliapin sympathized with the revolution from a young age, he and his family did not escape emigration. The new government confiscated the artist’s house, car, and bank savings. He tried to protect his family and theater from attacks, and repeatedly met with the country's leaders, including Lenin And Stalin, but this only helped temporarily.
In 1922, Chaliapin and his family left Russia and toured Europe and America. In 1927, the Council of People's Commissars deprived him of the title of People's Artist and the right to return to his homeland. According to one version, Chaliapin donated the proceeds from the concert to the children of emigrants, and in the USSR this gesture was regarded as support for the White Guards.
The Chaliapin family settles in Paris, and it is there that the opera singer will find his final refuge. After touring in China, Japan, and America, Chaliapin returned to Paris in May 1937, already ill. Doctors make a diagnosis of leukemia.
“I’m lying... in bed... reading... and remembering the past: theaters, cities, hardships and successes... How many roles I played! And it seems not bad. Here’s a Vyatka peasant for you...” wrote Chaliapin in December 1937 to his daughter Irina.
The great artist passed away on April 12, 1938. Chaliapin was buried in Paris, and only in 1984 his son Fyodor achieved the reburial of his father’s ashes in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery. In 1991, 53 years after his death, Fyodor Chaliapin was returned to the title of People's Artist.
Fyodor Chaliapin made an invaluable contribution to the development of opera. His repertoire includes over 50 roles played in classical operas, over 400 songs, romances and Russian folk songs. In Russia, Chaliapin became famous for the bass lines of Borisov Godunov, Ivan the Terrible, Mephistopheles. It was not only his magnificent voice that delighted the audience. Chaliapin paid great attention to the stage image of his heroes: he transformed into them on stage.
Personal life
Fyodor Chaliapin was married twice, and from both marriages he had 9 children. The singer met his first wife, Italian ballerina Iola Tornaghi, at the Mamontov Theater. In 1898 they got married, and in this marriage Chaliapin had six children, one of whom died at an early age. After the revolution, Iola Tornaghi lived in Russia for a long time, and only in the late 50s she moved to Rome at the invitation of her son.
While married, in 1910 Fyodor Chaliapin became close to Maria Petzold, who raised two children from her first marriage. The first marriage had not yet been dissolved, but in fact the singer had a second family in Petrograd. In this marriage, Chaliapin had three daughters, but the couple was able to formalize their relationship already in Paris in 1927. Fyodor Chaliapin spent the last years of his life with Maria.
Interesting Facts
Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements and contributions to music.
Chaliapin was a wonderful draftsman and tried his hand at painting. Many of his works have survived, including “Self-Portrait”. He also tried himself in sculpture. Performing in Ufa at the age of 17 as Stolnik in the opera Moniuszko“Pebble” Chaliapin fell on stage and sat down past the chair. All his life from that moment on, he kept a vigilant eye on the seats on the stage. Leo Tolstoy, after listening to the folk song “Nochenka” performed by Chaliapin, expressed his impressions: “He sings too loudly...”. And Semyon Budyonny, after meeting Chaliapin in the carriage and drinking a bottle of champagne with him, recalled: “His mighty bass seemed to make the whole carriage tremble.”
Chaliapin collected weapons. Old pistols, rifles, spears, mostly donated by A.M. Gorky, hung on his walls. The house committee either took away his collection, then, at the direction of the deputy chairman of the Cheka, returned it.
Elena Borisova
