Feodor Chaliapin ( 1873-1938) was perhaps the greatest singing actor of the 20th century. His voice was on a par with Caruso’s (also born in February 1873) while his acting ability was at least equal to that of Maria Callas. He was born to a peasant family in Kazan Russia. After vocal studies with a private teacher, he debuted at the Tbilisi Georgia, and sang at the Imperial Opera House in Saint Peterburg. When he sang at Mamontov’s Private Russian Opera in Moscow, he met Sergei Rachmaninoff, an assistant conductor with the company who became a lifelong friend.
Rachmaninoff, another 1873 baby, taught Chaliapin how to analyze a score and insisted that he learn not only his part in an opera but all the others as well. With Rachmaninoff, he learned the role of Boris Gudonov. It became his signature part.
Soon he was singing at the Bolshoi. He regularly appeared there between 1899 and 1914. In 1901 he appeared as Mefistofele in Boito’s opera at La Scala. Toscanini conducted. The Maestro proclaimed him the greatest operatic talent he had ever worked with. He appeared at the Met during the 1907-08 season. The realism and intensity of his acting overwhelmed some of the then prim New York audience. He entranced others. For whatever reason he did not return to the company until 1921. His success in the 20s in New York was sensational. During his first season at the Met, he appeared several times with Caruso. Wouldn’t you like to have heard these performances?
Chaliapin’s singing is unique. He was able to realize every nuance of the emotional contact of whatever he sang. In addition to the standard Russian repertory, Chaliapin was equally effective in French and Italian operas. His presence was so overpowering that it was hard for audiences to focus on anyone but him. He was equally compelling as a recitalist. His interpretive insights reveal the inner meaning of what he sang with unmatched power. He was to opera what Babe Ruth was to baseball.
Chaliapin made many recordings in both the acoustical and then electrical formats. His dark voice came across almost as well on the former as it did on the more advanced technology. His rendition of Count Rodolfo’s aria from Bellini’s La Sonambula shows his ability to master any style. Oroveso’s aria from Norma is equally well done. Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a regular part of his repertory. He sang the role during his first season at the Met. His reading of the Catalog aria is incisive. I can’t tell if the fast tempo is the result of the limitations of the recording process or his choice.
It was his depiction of Don Basilio in Rossini’s Barber as a dirty and sweaty priest that upset some New Yorkers in Chaliapin’s first season at the Met. La Calumnia is Basilio’s great depiction of the effects of slander.
Chaliapin was a great interpreter of Verdi’s basso roles. Infelice!… e tu redev is Don Ruy Gomez de Silva’s Act 1 aria from Ernani. He’s an old man who wants a young bride who of course loves the tenor. When he sang King Philip in Don Carlo he became the center of the work. Dormiro sol starts a bit into the Phlip’s aria that begins the famous scene in the King’s apartment.
Chaliapin made his Met debut as the title character in Boito’s Mefistofele. In the Prologue Mefistofele declares that he can win the soul of Faust. Ave signor. Gounod’s devil (in Faust) was also a favorite part of Chaliapin. Le veau d’or (The golden calf). He also recorded the Coat Song from Puccini’s Bohème, though I don’t know if he sang the relatively small role onstage.
He often sang the Song of the Volga Boatmen during his frequent recitals. His is the definitive version of the song.
Finally his greatest role – Boris Gudonov. Deems Taylor’s review of his first Met appearance (Dec 9, 1921) as the tortured Tsar is below. Taylor was an esteemed composer and critic. His review reflects the gigantic presence of the legendary Russian basso. Boris’s three solos are presented with their English titles though, obviously, Chaliapin sang them in Russian as he did at the Met, the rest of the cast performed the opera in an Italian translation. I have attained the highest power./ The Clock Scene./ The Death of Boris.
Chaliapin was a unique artist. Many great singers have succeeded him and the future will see more, but his like will never again appear.
Review of Deems Taylor in The New York World:
Feodor Chaliapin brings something to the opera that is greater than singing, greater than acting. He brings drama, that perfect realization, and illusion of life for which singing and acting exist, the thing that only a few of the great possess. Jeritza has it; Whitehill sometimes has it; but neither possesses it to the overpowering degree that Chaliapin does.
He sang Boris at the Metropolitan last night for the first time here. One says “sang” because it is the conventional word and the most easily comprehended. It is not adequate. He lived Boris; he was Boris. When he strode upon the stage in the first act towering above his lords and nobles, his gold crown flashing in the sun, his kaftan heavy with embroidery, and swept his arm over his people in a great gesture of benediction, all sense of artifice, of the theatre, vanished. As long as he was there the other singers, the scenery, the audience, even Moussorgsky’s great music-all were blotted out. One saw only the Czar Boris Godunoff, living, triumphant, agonizing and dying.
Chaliapin must be the most stupendous stage personality in the world. There is no question of his creating an illusion. The thing he inspires is belief, instant, absolute, unquestioning. Even as he gazed, terrified, across the palace chamber at the ghost of the murdered Dmitri, the audience turned started eyes toward the spot at which he has gazing. And when they saw nothing there they turned again to the Czar, groveling on his knees by his chair, a tortured Rodin figure some to life, so huge, so pitiful-and wrung their hands and suffered his torment with him. When he lay dying in the hall of the Duma, his great frame stretched prone as a fallen oak, his glazed and blinded eyes turned for the last time upon his little son, men and women watched him with unashamed tears trickling down their cheeks.
His voice is marvelous. Such thrilling timbre, such almost incredible control of coloring and dynamics, are something one might not ever find again in a generation of opera going. He sang in Russian; and it seemed as if Moussorgsky’s music had never quite been heard before. For Moussorgsky did more than set Russian words to music; he wrote music that is as much a part of the Russian language as the words themselves…
The house was sold out completely, of course, and the audience was hysterical in its reception of the great Russian. The roar that greeted him after the Kremlin scene was deafening. And well they might cheer. They were seeing operatic history in the making.
