Ivan Petrov. To remember and listen

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The divine, velvety, enveloping bass was possessed by Ivan Petrov, without knowing it himself. And to the happiness of the listeners, this amazing voice was discovered in an ordinary high school, by a simple singing teacher, for which we bow to him, otherwise we might not have known the singer Ivan Petrov, but the volleyball player Ivan Krause.

Childhood and youth

Ivan Ivanovich was born into a family of long-long Russified Germans named Krause in Irkutsk in 1920. The family was homely musical. Everyone sang - both the father, who had a bass, and the mother. Ivans in the family were three generations of men. In the civil war, Krause the father fought together with the revolutionary P. P. Postyshev, who later was in the Central Committee of the RCP (b) next to Stalin. Such comradeship was fatal for the father of young Ivan, his father fell under Stalinist repression and disappeared forever in the camps.

In the thirties the whole family moved to Moscow, the brothers and sisters learned to sing from the tenor A. M. Labinsky, who before the revolution performed on the stage with Chaliapin. But Ivan did not study vocals, he was attracted to sports, especially since his height was considerable - 190 cm. He played in the Lokomotiv team and was very passionate about sports. But somehow at recess at school he sang a partGremin from "Eugene Onegin", and he was heard by a singing teacher. He invited a seventeen-year-old boy to sing with musical accompaniment. Since then, Ivan Petrov has become a constant participant in school amateur performances.

At the music school

Under pressure from friends, Ivan Krause entered a music school in 1938, where he was lucky with a teacher who was Chaliapin's stage partner. Taking vocals and relentlessly working on bass-heavy upper notes of the first octave, he was also interested in acting.

To do this, he attended theatrical performances of drama theaters, looking closely at the actions of the actors. The fruits of such labors made themselves felt - he was invited to work at the Philharmonic together with I. S. Kozlovsky. But the war began.

Front concerts

First, the Philharmonic was evacuated to Central Asia, and then went on tour, where opera singers performed with concert programs on the Bryansk and Volkhov fronts.

More than three hundred concerts were given on the front lines. The most unsuitable conditions for preserving the voice are frosts, cold.

Bolshoi Theater

In 1943 he, a young singer, was invited to audition at the Bolshoi Theater. The competition ended with the fact that he was accepted into the troupe. This was the heyday of the theatre. In it, the parts were performed by famous basses, such opera singers as A. S. Pirogov, M. O. Reisen and many others. But Krause had parts so far small, age-related, requiring not only vocals, but also actingskill. After the war, Stalin drew attention to his voice and suggested that the performer change his last name. This is how Ivan Petrov appeared.

Where else did the singer perform

For 27 years, all the leading parts were performed at the Bolshoi. And there were countless trips abroad. The most precious memory is the meeting with the granddaughter of Charles Gounod, when an unforgettable sincere compliment was heard that the composer had imagined Mephistopheles in this way. It was in Paris, at the Opera Garnier, which the Russians call the Grand Opera. And for the second time, another significant meeting took place in Milan, where the performance of "Boris Godunov" took place. Ivan Petrov made such a huge impression on the granddaughter of Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin that she gave him a concert ring of her great grandfather.

It is now on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow in the F. I. Chaliapin Museum. Petrov Ivan Ivanovich carefully kept it, but he never dared to put it on. Ivan Ivanovich traveled all over the world with tours. And everywhere was received with enthusiasm. He was given the title of honorary member of the Opera Garnier in Paris. He became the winner of the Golden Orpheus Prize and the Thomas Edison Prize, because he recorded more than ninety records with romances and arias from operas. Ivan Petrov, a world-class singer, did not forget to go on tour in the cities of his homeland. In 1959 he was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR, later he was awarded the Orders of Lenin and Friendship of Peoples. Ivan Petrov starred as Gremin in the film-opera "Eugene Onegin". This film was a huge success, and the charming Gremin was not inferior in anythingOnegin.

Hobbies

Besides the theatre, radio and television, the singer was interested in photography, technology, including cars, which he masterfully managed and could himself prepare for technical inspection. At the dacha, he easily took up the ax and other tools.

Swagger was alien to a man with a capital letter - he had an attentive and benevolent attitude towards people. Ivan Petrov passed away on December 26, 2003 at the age of 83 and was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.