The great Russian opera singer, loved not only by our listeners. Her work is well known far beyond the borders of her native country.
Childhood, family
Obraztsova Elena Vasilievna was born in Leningrad on July 7, 1939. Dad - Vasily Alekseevich, mother - Natalia Ivanovna. Elena Obraztsova, whose biography is associated with the harsh years of the war, experienced all the horrors of this time. She connects all her childhood memories with the blockade. In the very first days of that terrible war, his father went to battle to the front. Until the end of 1942, little Lena with her mother and grandmother remained in the besieged city. Only in the spring they were evacuated to the Vologda region, to the city of Ustyuzhna, where they lived until the summer of 1945.
After the war ended, his father returned from the front only a year later. Life was very hard. Mom got a job, and Lena sent to kindergarten. The first attention to the girl’s unusual and strong voice was drawn by the music director and immediately told her mother about it, but she was so busy with everyday problems that she did not attach importance to her words.
Lena began to sing very early. Already at the age of five, parents and neighbors listened to "concerts" performed by the girl. She had a very thin, mosquito voice. She sang everything she could hear on the radio. These were mostly Strauss waltzes. When Lena grew up and began to study at school, she always did homework to music. During opera broadcasts, she sat for hours at the reproducer. Music for the future opera diva was not a complement to life, but its main part.
She always remembered family music nights. Elena's father had an unusually beautiful baritone and played the violin well. At work, he often went abroad and once from Italy brought several records, on which Lena studied the voices of great singers - Caruso, Gigli, Galli-Kurchi.
Children's choir
In 1948, my mother recorded Lena in a children's choir at the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers. This team was led by Maria Zarinskaya, an outstanding teacher and an extraordinary person. She managed to instill in the girl a love of music and gave her the dream of a career as a singer.
In 1954, at the choir's reporting concert, the first solo performance of the young singer took place.
Taganrog
In 1954, Elena's father was transferred to work in Taganrog. This city gave the aspiring actress a meeting with an excellent teacher A.T. Kulikova. Her Lena was engaged in vocals for two years. She took part in school concerts with pleasure - she sang famous romances and songs that were popular at that time from the repertoire of the famous Lolita Torres. On the stage of the theater. Chekhov arranged reporting concerts. Once at one of them the girl was noticed by the director of a music school from Rostov-on-Don Mankovskaya. She advised her to continue her education.
In 1957, Elena was admitted to the school immediately for a second year. In August 1958, E. Obraztsova passed an audition and was accepted to the preparatory department of the Leningrad Conservatory. More than one hundred people applied for admission, of which only three applicants accepted, among whom was Elena Obraztsova.
She went to a course with Professor Antonina Grigorieva, a specialist wise and very patient. As Obraztsova recalls, whose photo you see in this article, she always wanted to immediately sing great arias, complex and unusually beautiful romances, but Antonina Andreevna convinced that it was impossible to sing without comprehending the basics of vocals.
First awards
Elena Obraztsova, whose biography was already inextricably linked with the theater, in 1962 received two gold medals at once at the youth festival in Helsinki and at the vocal competition of them. Glinka in Moscow. From that moment, the career of a novice artist began to develop rapidly. Opera singer Elena Obraztsova received an invitation to the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater. Her debut on the stage of the legendary theater took place on December 17, 1963 in the opera Boris Godunov. It was at this time that the decision was made to end the conservatory as an external student.
On May 11, 1964, in the Glazunov Hall, Elena Obraztsova passed the final exam, at which S.P. Preobrazhenskaya gave Elena a five-plus mark, which no one had received in the Leningrad Conservatory for the past forty years.
Elena Obraztsova: biography, the beginning of a career
In the same year, the singer went on her first tour to Japan as part of the Bolshoi Theater, and in the fall to Italy. She performed on the famous stage of the La Scala theater. Her parties were small - Princess Mary (War and Peace) and governesses in The Queen of Spades. In the very first year of work in the theater, Obraztsova Elena Vasilyevna performed eight (!) Parts, thereby forcing all musical Moscow to talk about herself. In a very short time, the name of the rising star shone in the world of opera. The tour in Paris in 1969 became especially significant for the young opera singer. The resounding success in the party of Marina Mnishek changed her creative destiny dramatically.
In 1970, she received gold medals at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and in Barcelona at the Tchaikovsky Competition. F. Vinyasa. In 1971, in Paris, in the Playel Concert Hall, opera lovers presented her first recital, which French journalists called “historical”. Following Paris, the largest cities and capitals of the world recognized that Elena Obraztsova is a singer, who is one of the most brilliant opera stars in the world. Her performances on renowned stages went down in the history of opera. She managed to raise the Russian vocal school to an unprecedented height.
Concert activity
Elena Vasilievna tours with concerts around the world and, of course, in Russia. The repertoire of her concerts consists of the music of one hundred Russian and foreign composers. In her performance, ancient romances and Russian songs sound unforgettably. In recent years, admirers of the singer’s talent have become acquainted with her programs - “Songs of my youth”, “Baroque music”, ““ Songs of war ”. Between 2009 and 2013, Obraztsova performed sololy in eighty concerts in our country and abroad.
Elena Vasilievna - director
In 1986, Obraztsova surprised admirers of her talent, presenting them in a new capacity. On the stage of her native theater, she staged the opera Werther by J. Masne.
Obraztsova - teacher
From 1973 to 1994, the famous singer taught at the Conservatory. Tchaikovsky in Moscow. Since 1992 he has been teaching at the Musashino Academy in Tokyo, giving unique master classes in Russia, Europe, and Japan. Quite often today, the famous singer is invited to the jury of international vocal competitions - Tchaikovsky in Moscow (1994), vocalists in Marseille (1997), Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg (1998). In 1996, Elena Obraztsova, a world-famous singer, created the Cultural Center in St. Petersburg.
Charity fund
In 2011, our beloved singer established the Elena Obraztsova Foundation, a charitable organization whose main goal is educational projects, the creation of the International Academy of Music, the search and training of talented youth, and assistance to veterans of the stage. The foundation has already held several charity concerts dedicated to stage veterans.
Music films
Many directors enjoyed shooting music films with the participation of the great singer. This is “My Carmen” (1977), “Happy Commonwealth” (1980), “Merry Widow” (1984), “Higher Than Love” (1991) and others. Her partners were Fedora Barbieri, Placido Domingo, Renato Bruzon.
Sound recording
Elena Vasilievna at the largest studios recorded over fifty discs. In recent years, recordings have appeared from concerts and performances of the singer in honor of the bicentennial of the La Scala theater. Obraztsova was awarded the Golden Verdi prize for them.
Artistic director
In 2008, Obraztsova led the opera group of the Opera and Ballet Theater. Mussorgsky. Two premieres were presented - the operas Rural Honor and Love Drink.
Natural talent or hard work?
Undoubtedly, nature generously endowed the singer: her voice has a timbre of extraordinary beauty, a bright, memorable appearance, a rare gift of a dramatic actress. All these data were surprisingly combined in an artist devotedly devoted to music and art. For Elena Vasilievna, singing is not just a profession, but the highest meaning of her whole life.
Elena Obraztsova: personal life
V.P. Makarov is a famous theoretical physicist. Little is known about him. A scientist of this level serves science, not people. This is the first exemplary husband. Their marriage lasted 17 years. All this time, the husband watched the house, took care of his daughter Lena, who was born in this marriage, and waited for her husband after a long tour. Elena Vasilievna remembers him with respect and warmth, but does not regret that she fell in love with another person. During a divorce, she lost her voice from experiences , and she could not sing at all.
Obraztsova met her second husband on stage. This is the famous Lithuanian and Russian conductor Algis Martselovich Juraitis. He never complained about his health. A terrible, insidious disease burned him unexpectedly and cruelly. At first, Elena Yakovlevna poorly understood what had happened. She darted through countries and cities, carefully avoiding a house where everything reminded her beloved. Elena Obraztsova, whose biography so far has developed happily, suffered a severe blow. She drove dark thoughts from herself, but she did not have the strength to continue living. In addition, during this difficult time, daughter Elena and her family went to Spain to study vocals, and took their grandson with them. A desperate woman grew fat, her voice lost its unique beauty. Elena Vasilyevna fell into a deep depression, out of which her friends helped her.
Today the family of Elena Obraztsova is the daughter Elena (also an opera singer), grandson Alexander and granddaughter Anastasia.
She will not be old
Once in Hungary, Elena Vasilievna saw a woman of amazing beauty, whose age was betrayed only by her old-old hands. Then she told herself that when this terrible age came, she would definitely turn to plastic surgeons - no one would ever see her old. Obraztsova does not hide the fact that she has already done several operations. She believes that artists on stage, this is necessary.