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To Shalyapin with love
Published: 21 February, 2009, 22:09
Fyodor Shalyapin – the name is dear to Russians and foreigners alike. But now, the pitiful state of the church where the renowned baritone wedded his Italian love has evoked an international response.
French, Indian and Russian – this fusion of inspirations has borne fruit. The last week has seen a concert where pieces by Russian and Italian composers sounded like they did in the good old days.
The repertoire of the concert was in part made up of the music which Fyodor Shalyapin used to sing himself.
Pieces by Russian composers Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky were performed by nominees of international competitions, and accompanied by opera fragments by Giacomo Puccini and Charles François Gounod.
The proceeds from the event, which gathered a large international audience, will go to prepare a restoration project for Gagino church, where the marriage of Fyodor Shalyapin and Italian ballerina Iola Tornagi was blessed in 1898.
“In France, we are used to respecting the past,” said one of the organizers, the director of ‘ConsiultRu’ company Catherine Joubert. “This church is a historic object, and helping restore it will help preserve Russia’s rich history and culture.”
She went on to say that Russia had been one of the greatest states before the revolution hit it and she wants to prevent its spirit from vanishing.
“What will stay, if these buildings die? Khrushchev ‘architecture’? ” she said. “There was a talent, there was energy and it should remain.”
Svetlana Melnikova, the head of the ‘Village church’ NGO that is engaged in conservation about the Gagino monument, say that the church was in a poor state when they first heard about it.
“When we saw it in 2003, there was no roof and the whole construction was shabby,” she said. “It was used as a sawmill in Soviet times.”
Melnikova said that in 2004 the Bolshoi theatre supported the reconstruction of the dome topped with a cross, donating proceeds from one of their performances of Tchaikovsky’s opera ‘Iolanta’.
Fact box
Fyodor Shalyapin was born into a peasant family in the Russian city of Kazan on February 13, 1873.
He received no formal vocal training in his childhood and youth, until, age of 17 when he was already performing with a provincial opera company.
His talent revealed most fully during his work at the merchant Savva Morozov’s private opera in Moscow, where he could choose his repertoire himself.
Shalyapin was successful in Europe and also sang on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera.
His parts in leading roles in Mussorgsky’s ‘Boris Godunov’ and ‘Faust’ by Gounod brought him world fame.
Shalyapin left Russia in 1922 for Paris, where he died on April 12, 1938.
“Making a roof is crucial – it protects the building and wall paintings from destruction, made by rain and snow,” she said.
Meanwhile, the villagers of Gagino celebrate Shalyapin and Tornagi’s marriage in their own way.
“For 8 years in a row, the locals have been holding a music festival in Gagino on the day of the marriage,” said Yury Timopheev, the president of the Shalyapin Center, which promotes awareness of the singer’s legacy. “In 2008 we joined in and there was a big concert on a clearing in front of the church, which many people from surrounding villages came to watch.”
Melnikova said that even when the church was lying in ruins, Gagino people expressed their love for the place and its history.
“Before we started reconstruction, there had been a phenomenon here that I would call ‘esteemed ruins’”, she said.
People here planted trees and flowers under the arches, put a picture of the couple on the church and even held a religious service.
Zhanna Budenkova, RT
21.02.2009, 09:52
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