Open Features: Galina Vishnevskaya
Peter Wintersgill outlines the career of Russian opera star Galina Vishnevskaya.
Born
25th. October 1926 in Leningrad.
Adolescence
Studied with V. Garina.
Adult life
Sang in operetta from 1944,then opera debut 1950 Leningrad in Strelnikov's Kholopka. Joined the Bolshoi opera in 1952, roles included Tchaikovsky's Tatyana and Lisa, and in operas of Shebalin and Prokoviev. New York Met debut 1961 & Covent Garden 1962, both as Aida.
A fine dramatic singer, she married the cellist Rostropovich in 1955, with whom she left the U.S.S.R. She gave the premiere of Britten's Poets Echo in Moscow in 1965, the soprano part of his War Requiem was written for her, but she did not sing it at the Coventry premiere.
