Vera Kudryavtseva - opera singer, wife of Sergei Yakovlevich Lemeshev: biography

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

Vera Kudryavtseva was quite a gifted and promising Leningrad opera singer. She performed on the stage of the Maly Opera Theater in the second half of the last century. Despite the fact that Vera Nikolaevna was really very talented, today many people remember her solely thanks to her husband.

They became the greatest opera singer - Lemeshev Sergey Yakovlevich, who was known not only for his unique voice, but also for his bright personal life.

Kudryavtseva unfairly went down in history as his last official wife, with whom the singer lived for 27 years.

Vera Kudryavtseva: biography, family and childhood

The future opera singer was born in a large family and became the thirteenth child. She was born in 1911 in the town of Staraya Russa, which at that time belonged to the Novgorod province. It is worth noting that Vera Kudryavtseva was brought up in a fairly educated family. Herfather - Nikolai Onisimovich - was a graduate of the Physics and Mathematics Department of Petrograd University. Her mother, Mariamna Fedorovna, was a woman with a difficult fate. She gave birth to her husband 13 children, the last of which was the future singer. At the same time, three children of Mariamna Fedorovna died in infancy, and only ten survived, grew up and received an education.

Father of Vera, although he was known as a talented teacher, had the glory of a man with a difficult character. He was incorruptible and very principled, which often complicated his relationship with higher management. This became the reason for the frequent relocations of a large family, with which, of course, little Vera also moved, in the future known to the general public as Vera Nikolaevna Kudryavtseva-Lemesheva.

Youth in Opochka

Once Nikolai Onisimovich received another assignment. This time he was sent to a small town called Opochka. There he became chairman of the board of trustees in the women's gymnasium and combined this appointment with the position of director of the city school. In 1918, Nikolai Kudryavtsev moved his entire family to Opochka. Thus, it was in this city that Vera Kudryavtseva spent her youth.

Family Love for Music

Many years later, in her memoirs, Vera Nikolaevna will speak of this time with special warmth. She will tell that their family then lived in a large and spacious two-story house. Almost everyone had their own private room, and there was also a large piano room, whereplayed music quite often. One of Vera's older sisters sang quite well, and the head of the family, Nikolai Onisimovich, also sang well. Vera Nikolaevna recalled that various performances and musical plays often took place in their house. Of course, it was almost impossible not to absorb the love of music in such an atmosphere.

First public speaking experience

Kudryavtseva Vera Nikolaevna shares her memories that, while still a schoolgirl, she already had a specific goal in life - to become a singer. The girl showed her talent from an early age: she had excellent hearing and a strong voice. Once she was even entrusted to sing a solo in the Assumption Cathedral, and her whole class came to church to listen to Vera sing.

Education Received

Being a very strict person, the head of the Kudryavtsev family did not approve of his daughters' youthful hobbies in music and theater. It would be more correct to say that he did not want his daughters to connect their future profession and fate with the creative direction, since it all seemed to him frivolous and unpromising.

Largely because of this, the first professional education received by Vera was far from music and art. After moving to Leningrad, the girl receives a technical profession, having completed courses under the loud title "Technology - to the masses." Vera gets a job as a laboratory assistant at the Litopon plant, but despite this, she does not part with her dream of connecting her life with music and regularly continues to sing on her own. Working forchemical plant, she simultaneously decides to go to study at the Leningrad Evening Workers' Conservatory.

There the girl showed herself very well. As one of the best students in 1936, she was transferred to study at the Leningrad Conservatory, and she was enrolled immediately in the 2nd year. She gets into the class of the teacher Sofya Akimova-Ershova and, as a student, gets a great opportunity to perform on the same stage with her husband, the outstanding opera singer Ivan Ershov. Verochka had the happy opportunity to perform two operas from Wagner in a duet with Yershov. A talented student, Vera Kudryavtseva-Lemesheva (whom the general public would later know under this double surname), was even awarded a Stalin scholarship for excellent studies in her 5th year at the conservatory.

Difficult war years

After successfully graduating from the Leningrad Conservatory, Vera Kudryavtseva intended to continue her studies in graduate school. Of course, she is accepted there, and in parallel with her studies, Kudryavtseva is already performing at the Opera Studio. Then she plans to perform at the Maly Opera, but her plans are corrected by the outbreak of World War II. Together with the entire graduate school of the conservatory, she was forced to evacuate to Tashkent. In addition, it is worth noting that at the time of the start of the war and the evacuation, Kudryavtseva was pregnant.

As a student, Vera met Mikhail Dovenman, a soloist at the Maly Opera Theatre, who later became her husband. And it was in the evacuation that a son was born to this married couple. While in Tashkent, she constantly worked at the local theater and tirelessly gaveconcerts in military hospitals.

Also, Vera became close to her teacher Akimova-Ershova and helped her in every possible way in her teaching activities. Unfortunately, many of Kudryavtseva's relatives remained in Leningrad during the blockade. Everything ended tragically for them: Vera's parents died, her brother and 4 sisters also passed away.

Return to Leningrad from evacuation

In 1944, after the blockade was broken, Vera returned to Leningrad. She gets a job at the Small Opera and in a short time begins to perform the main parts. Her repertoire included very difficult roles in terms of performance, including: Eleanor in Il trovatore, Natasha Rostova, Princess in Koshchei the Immortal and Elena in Sicilian Vespers. But fateful for Vera was the performance of the role of Tatiana in "Eugene Onegin".

Kudryavtseva's partner in this performance was the legendary Sergey Lemeshev, a singer with whom any opera diva dreamed of singing a duet.

Fatal Acquaintance

When Sergei Yakovlevich came on tour to Leningrad, he, of course, immediately met his partner, and she almost instantly impressed him. Before each rehearsal, he went to Kudryavtseva and asked how she was doing. But, despite the fact that their sympathy was mutual, Vera Nikolaevna kept a certain distance for a long time. By that time, Sergei Yakovlevich Lemeshev was really insanely popular, he had crowds of ardent fans who simply deified him. Moreover, at the time ofLemeshev was only officially married 4 times, and he had much more unofficial connections.

Kudryavtseva understood that a man who was a real idol for thousands of women was always spoiled by female attention. Therefore, she tried to pretend that the opera singer with an angelic face was completely indifferent to her.

Sergey Lemeshev - singer and beloved husband of Vera Nikolaevna

Despite all the tricks of Vera Nikolaevna, over time, Lemeshev nevertheless achieved her favor. Their relationship was very complicated by the fact that at the time of meeting and falling in love, each of this couple was officially married. But feelings prevailed, and in 1948 Lemeshev made Kudryavtseva a marriage proposal. Naturally, he divorced his previous wife. Vera Nikolaevna also broke up with her first husband, Sergei Dovenman, who understood that it would be useless to keep her.

Despite all the difficulties, Kudryavtseva and Lemeshev got married, and from 1950 until the death of Sergei Yakovlevich, this couple was together. They lived together for a long 27 years. Unfortunately, there were people who were not very happy about this union, and for a long time Vera Nikolaevna was refused to give a transfer from Leningrad to Moscow. She was forced to work out a performance in Leningrad and rush by train to her husband in the capital in order to spend as much time with him as possible.

Such a life, half of which takes place on trains, can tire any person very quickly, and Kudryavtsevawas no exception. She decided to leave the Maly Opera, and despite the fact that she was just supposed to be awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR. Thus, for the sake of Lemeshev, she sacrificed her entire career, but she never regretted it.

Subsequently, of course, she performed on opera stages, mainly working under contracts, but, of course, she did not receive world fame and well-deserved recognition. The general public remembered her only as the last wife of the great and talented Sergei Lemeshev.

Vera Nikolaevna passed away in 2009. She was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, next to her husband, whom she survived for 13 years.