Oda Slobodskaya Magnificent Soprano of Imperial Russia

A tribute to ODA SLOBODSKAYA, the greatest Russian Soprano of the early and mid 20th century.

She was born in Vilno and studied in the St Petersburg Conservatoire. Her teacher was the formidable Natalia Iretskaya, a pupil of Pauline Viardot Garcia.

She was chosen by Fyodor Chaliapin to be Elisabetta in Don Carlos, opposite his King Philip, when he brought his opera Company to Paris and London in the 1920s.

She later settled in England and enjoyed a major international career, singing at La Scala and Covent Garden as well as touring South America.

In later years she was famous, and much loved, as a recitalist and definitive interpreter of Russian song.

She was a fine teacher, at both the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School, and continued to give lecture recitals up to the last year of her life.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Slobodskaya
• Russian
• Opera
• Song
• Eugene
• Onegin
• Pushkin

[baltapele]

she was born in Vilnius,not Vilno( which is a polish name for Lithuanian capital) if you please

[CharlotteinWeimar]

Vilnius is indeed the present day and ancient name for the capital of Lithuania, However, from 1795 until 1918 Vilno was annexed by Russia.

Oda Slobodskaya was born there in around 1888 and always considered herself to be Russian. She also spoke fluent Polish, but I never heard her refer to her homeland as Lithuania or her nationality as either Lithuanian or Polish.

[CurzonRoad]

Wonderful, w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l.... thank you!

[796824]

A real singer. The performers today should listen and learn that singing is using what nature gave them. It is not manipulating the tone to increase volume. Violinists were told to listen to singers in the Golden Period. They cannot do so today because there is no center to the tone because of distortion.

[agingbeauty]

Sublime....

[vstasov]

Dear CharlotteinWeimar, thank you so much for such loveliness.

[65attila]

So wonderful- thank you.

[essereVerbo]

Beautiful!

[basenjidiva]

Such a lovely, tender sound! What a lovely lullaby. A beautiful and touching rendition.

An extremely skilled, interpretive soprano.

Beautiful sound.

Fabulous speaking voice; very dramatic!

Thank you, CharlotteinWeimar, for these gifts you lavish upon us. Brava, CharlotteinWeimar!

[Jame243]

I love Russian Sopranos. Very expressive and dramatic and very beautiful singing in Russian!

Thank you!!