Russian singer Fyodor Shalyapin during his life managed to conquer the audience in many countries. Born in the Russian Empire and became famous during the USSR, he lived a decent life, and no one has yet managed to surpass his talent. His amazing high bass thundered through the best opera houses in Europe, and those who at least once heard his voice alive remembered him forever.
His ancestors bore the name Shelepina. Over time, it transformed into a form known to all of us. Fyodor Shalyapin’s parents were peasants. In childhood, the future opera singer studied at the shoemaker. When Fedor was 9 years old, he first heard choral singing in a church. It fascinated him so much that he joined the choir. For the first time, Chaliapin became interested in art when he was 16 years old. Then he joined the drama troupe as an ordinary extras. Already a year later, when he was 17 years old, Fyodor Shalyapin sang one of the parts in the opera Eugene Onegin, staged by Tchaikovsky.
Once, at the dawn of his operatic career, Chaliapin on the stage missed the chair and sat awkwardly on the floor. Since then, all his life he has carefully watched where he sits. throughout the year, Chaliapin lived in Tbilisi, where the then famous singer Dmitry Usatov taught him to sing. And the teacher gave him lessons for free, as Fedor did not have money to pay for tuition. At 22, Fyodor Shalyapin was already performing on the stage of the famous Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The singer performed parts in operas by such famous composers as Mussorgsky and Glinka. Fyodor Shalyapin was married twice, and he had 11 children – 9 of his own and two of his second wife, from her first marriage. And for several years, the singer lived in two houses and two families – his first wife lived in Moscow, and the second – in St. Petersburg. With his second wife, Chaliapin never officially registered the relationship. This connection was often the cause of scandals, and once in New York he even had to pay reporters 10 thousand dollars to persuade them not to cover his personal life in the press.
Chaliapin was offered the position of artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater, but he refused it for the sake of a similar position in the Mariinsky Theater. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks confiscated Chaliapin’s house, a car and most of his savings. As a result, in 1922, the great opera singer left his homeland forever, moving to France with his second wife. Because Fyodor Shalyapin donated money raised for one of his concerts to the children of White Guard immigrants, the Soviet authorities deprived him of the title of people’s artist and forbade him to ever return to the country. His tour Chaliapin spent almost around the world. He even had tours in the USA, Japan and China, not to mention almost all European countries. He made friends with the famous writer Maxim Gorky.
One of the hobbies of Chaliapin was collecting weapons, mostly rare. Once, when he was still young, he tore off the performance, entangled in a magnificent robe and collapsed onto the stage. The audience laughed so hard that the concert actually had to be suspended. Leo Tolstoy, after listening to a few folk songs performed by Fyodor Chaliapin, said that he “sings too loudly”. The singer died in Paris, and only 46 years later, through the efforts of his son, the remains of Fyodor Chaliapin were returned to the USSR and reburied. In the rank of national artist, he was restored in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR. During his life, Fyodor Chaliapin played more than 50 roles in classical operas, and performed over 400 songs and romances. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Chaliapin has a personal star.
