I thought it might be interesting to begin a series examining a singer each month. Some will be famous while others more obscure. To inaugurate this series I have chosen the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938). Before all the ruckus concerning the interpretive art of Maria Callas, there was Chaliapin. One could write a book on his recorded interpretations and I, for one, would love every word of it.
Chaliapin was a contemporary of Caruso, and his recorded legacy is just as vast. Beginning in 1898 (six privately made wax cylinders have survived) and continuing 38 years, until 1936, Chaliapin recorded over 450 sides during 84 recording sessions. Probably the most striking thing about this huge legacy is the fact that not one of them is uninteresting. As Keith Hardwick of EMI once noted, Chaliapin rarely, if ever, made a bad recording.
Feodor Chaliapin was born on February 13, 1873 (new calendar) in the Russian town of Kazan, into a poor, abusive household. His formative education consisted of four years of parochial school, after which he was apprenticed by his father to a shoemaker. Chaliapin learned to read from a neighbor across the street — Maxim Gorky. He first began singing as an alto at the age of nine in the local church choir and by the age of 17 had left home to travel with performing companies. In 1892 while in Tiflis, the teacher Usatov heard him sing and became his first and only voice teacher. Usatov not only taught Chaliapin the art of Cantabilie singing but also instilled in the young singer the importance of blending vocalism with acting. Also, very importantly, he introduced Chaliapin to the music of Mussorgsky. During the late 1890s Chaliapin garnered experience from his touring performances, and by 1898, and the age of 25, he was acknowledged by critics and audiences alike as an important artist of the Russian stages. Artistically, he developed rapidly and quickly became known for his searingly dramatic, realistic portrayals and an almost tyrannical demand for control over productions. (He even presented opera companies with a contract they were to sign which basically granted him complete control of artistic decisions.)
Although he appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in 1907, he was not successful and did not return until 1921 when he was rapturously acclaimed. By that time he had exiled himself from Russia, having lost sympathy with the communist way of life. He sang virtually all over the world and by 1927 had settled in Paris. He married twice and had eight children.
Not only was Chaliapin an accomplished singer, he was a superb makeup artist and costumer (he insisted upon doing his own makeup and bringing his own costumes). To recognize his skill in these areas, one need only look at the many photographs of him as Mefistofeles, Don Quichotte, Nilankantha, Boris, and Don Basilio (his portrayal of which scandalized audiences and offended the clergy). Tall, athletic and attractive, but with smooth, large, peasant features ( “free from any sharply distinctive features,” according to Victor Borovsky), his face could be amazingly mobile and adapted well to assuming other personalities. Chaliapin was also an accomplished painter and sculptor and published two biographical books during his life. Kutsch and Riemens accurately assessed him: “On the stage he was characterized by a self-willed, but always artistic, performance and by eminent acting skill.”
It is difficult for us today to understand or accept Chaliapin’s egocentric manner of dealing with artistic situations, but it seems his demand for control was never at the expense of the work at hand. I suspect he was the kind of artist that you would not want to spend much private time with, but one you would always go to see perform.
To comprehend the degree of Chaliapin’s acting ability, it should be remembered that Stanislovsky admitted that he patterned much of his own acting method on Chaliapin’s performances.
“To create a character Chaliapin had to comprehend the logic of his mental world and in addition, to define his psychological relationships with the other operatic characters. It was Chaliapin’s firm conviction that an actor’s incarnation of a role was woven to a significant extent of relationships with the other characters and opinions about them. These interrelationships revealed contradictory traits out of which the image of a real person would emerge. This could be achieved, however, only by deep study of all the roles in a production.” (“The Art of Chaliapin,” Victor Borovsky, Opera, 1/82)
Chaliapin did not interpret a role, he “was” the character. He explained the difference best himself when he wrote of watching the performance of a tenor in the role of Canio in I Pagliacci. The singer wept and suffered loudly on stage, but the audience found it amusing rather than moving. Backstage the singer was still in distress explaining to Chaliapin, “I can’t help myself, I cry. I was so sorry for the poor clown.” Chaliapin wrote : “I saw where the problem lay. A not entirely untalented singer ruined his role by crying not the clown’s tears but his own tears of sympathy. This produced a comic effect because the tenor’s tears were of no interest to anyone.”
So what was the voice like? It was a dark-hued, long-ranging bass instrument, more brilliant on top than at the bottom (similar to today’s Samuel Ramey), slightly dry in timbre and with a fast spinning vibrato. This dryness, or lack of rich, distinctive timbre (like his appearance) allowed him to infuse his music with a kaleidoscopic array of colors, all of which promoted his characterizations. His technique was not perfect. Anyone familiar with his Donizetti and Rossini recordings knows that his manner of dealing with floridity was comically idiosyncratic and would never be tolerated from a singer today. He also tampered with other music as well. His riveting recordings of the Clock Scene in Boris Godounov—really a mad scene—include text and exclamations not in Mussorgsky’s original. And there has always been criticism of his performance of Leporello’s and Basilio’s music. But this was not empty willfulness on Chaliapin’s part. If one compares photos of his Basilio with his recordings of the aria, one realizes that they are just different “images” of the same thing — one visual, one vocal. It is this striving for character honesty that makes one embrace the glory of his concepts.
There were a number of reasons for Chaliapin’s vocal longevity. High on the list was his training with Usatov. But there is another factor that few take into account. This was that Chaliapin habitually sang on the topside of pitch rather than in the center or underneath. (Part of this was undoubtedly due to the natural oscillation of his vibrato.) This kept his tone and pitch high, and consequently, kept his voice constantly “stretched.” Other singers have also instinctively sung in this manner: Leonie Rysanek, Leontyne Price, Placido Domingo, Birgit Nilsson, Boris Christoff and Samuel Ramey among them. And all had or are having unusually lengthy careers. Also, like them, Chaliapin had a tendency to sing a bit sharp at times. If you are not sure exactly what I mean, compare their singing with such artists as Jessye Norman, Deborah Voigt, James McCracken, and Cheryl Studer, whose vibratos tend to oscillate on the lower side of pitches and whose errors err on the lower, rather than the upper, side of pitch.
Then there is Chaliapin’s treatment of text. I do not refer to the mere articulating of words, but rather something that goes far deeper. It is an innate sensitivity to the physical peculiarities of the production of sounds within the mouth cavity. Callas had this instinct, as did Fischer-Dieskau and Schwarzkopf. It is the understanding that it is not only the words and their timbre which carry their meaning but also the manner in which you emit them. Not only could Chaliapin “bark” out dramatic recitative, but a moment later he could caress the vowels and consonants of words in such a way that it almost became an erotic experience. To hear a good example of this, listen to the aria from Rachmaninov’s Aleko (1929)—one of the most emotionally wrenching examples of yearning ever recorded. My description of all this is, at its best, simplistic—especially when you consider that there are all sorts of degrees in between these two polarities. The ability to recognize and utilize all those degrees and then unite them with timbre variations and innate musicality is interpretive genius, unique and unexplainable.
Combine all this with a fertile imagination and the heart of a painter and you have some unforgettable recordings. Predictably, with a discography of at least 456 different sides there is some duplication. For instance, over the 38 years Chaliapin released eight versions of the Prologue of Boito’s Mefistofele, seven versions of each Don Basilio’s “La Calumnia,” Schumann’s “Two Grenadiers” and Boris Godounov’s death scene; and four versions of King Philip’s “Dormiro sol” (Don Carlo) and Schubert’s “Doppel-ganger.” In Chaliapin’s case, however, these are never boring, identical repetitions; each version offers some differing characteristic.
In addition to Russian, Italian, and French arias, Chaliapin recorded (in Russian) songs of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Massenet, Grieg, and Ibert. (His song recitals would horrify audiences today. At a Chaliapin recital audience members were given a small, 5×7 booklet of about 74 pages which was called “Book of Songs in the repertoire of Feodor Chaliapin.” Inside were English translations of 101 songs. From the stage, Chaliapin would announce the number of the song he had decided to sing, giving the audience a moment to find the appropriate text.) Highly willful, he could often appear callous to the point of being offensive. On one occasion, he left the stage before his final exit at the end of a performance of Faust in a Met tour performance (Rochester New York, 1924) because he did not want to miss a train home.
Chaliapin’s Recordings on CD
Those who heard Chaliapin in the theater all agree that his recordings give only a dim view of his tremendous interpretive power. The few live recordings help somewhat. Even so, few other artists have provided posterity with such vivid documents.
So where does one start? One of my favorites remains the EMI “References” (EMI CDH 7610092), a collection of Russian operatic arias he recorded mostly in the 1920s. Beautifully transferred with care by Keith Hardwick, they offer an excellent portrait of this singer’s strengths. Included is the not-to-be-missed aria from Aleko as well as the desert island discs of Boris Godounov recorded live at Covent Garden (1928). This includes one of the most remarkable death scenes ever captured on disc—not to mention some pianissimo singing that should be studied by all voice types. (Chaliapin not only proves that a well-placed pianissimo will travel throughout the largest house, he also gives hints how to accomplish that feat. It is all there for anyone to decipher.) It is remarkable to remember that by 1928 he was 55 years old and had been singing professionally for thirty-eight years.
Another indispensable CD is Preiser’s “Feodor Chaliapin on Stage” (89965) which gathers all the live recordings from London
including the Boris recordings of 1928 and adds the Faust, Mefistofele, and Mozart and Salieri (Rimsky-Korsakov) also from 1927-28. This is a well-transferred disc and an education in itself.
Nimbus (and their particular manner of transferring) gives the listener an idea of what the Chaliapin voice would have sounded like when in recital — the voice bouncing off wooden walls. This two-disc set of 35 selections (NI 7823/24) also offers some indispensable recordings: the Death Scene from Massenet’s Don Quichotte (written for and premiered by Chaliapin) — a moving, unforgettable experience, Beethoven’s “In questa tomba” (one of my favorites), arias from Boheme, Prince Igor, Faust, Mefistofele, Rusalka (Dargomyzhsky), Sadko, and others. At a budget price this may be an excellent starting point for new listeners. Pearl has a number of volumes of Chaliapin but some may find their “undoctored” method of transferring difficult to get past — especially in the cases of some of the more obscure, worn recordings.
Arbiter (http://www.arbiterrecords.com) deserves special mention. In conjunction with the wife of the late Chaliapin collector, Vladimir Gurvich, Arbiter plans to release all the Chaliapin recordings—some 14 CDs—over the next number of years. Volume I (1902-1908) Arbiter 125, was released late in 2000 and Volume II (1908-1910) was released in February. (The 1898 cylinders are planned for a later volume.) I have included the web address of this company because if you decide to collect this singer’s discs, this is the company to watch. First of all, the transfers are very well done, but even more importantly, the original Russian texts and English translations are provided for all selections. Considering the tremendous importance in which Chaliapin held texts, and his interpretive strengths, this is an indispensable collection. In addition, the generous booklets include photos of Chaliapin in various roles. If you like this singer’s work, do not miss following the release of further volumes of this remarkable series.
Chaliapin is one of those rare singers whose recordings will truly enrich your own life and art. Today, some 63 years after his death, his striking individuality and willingness to take chances and stand up for what he believed to be the truth in his art remain an inspiration to all singers.
