Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The distant 1950s.
The WWII has just ended, and people give all their mental powers, now free from fear, to art.
Two irreconcilable groups of women were whirling at the 8 columns of the Bolshoi:
the "Lemeshists" and the "Kozlovskists".
At that time two remarkable tenors sang in the same production in turns.
Ivan Kozlovsky.
Born in the village of Marianovka in the Kiev region.
He had a voice that almost flew from the Ukrainian landscapes with their generous apple trees, serene lakes and thatched roofs.
Always fit, elegant, with a kindly smile,
Kozlovsky was a specific kind of lyric singer:
not so much melancholic as having a thirst for life and knowing his place in it.
And his voice, not big but very flying, was a reflection of its owner.
Or maybe the owner was a shadow of his voice.
But his seeming lightheartedness hid a gentle and sentimental soul underneath,
faithful to music and only to it.
The quest for the one and only best role can be hardly applied to Kozlovsky.
Although we must admit that the Holy Fool from "Boris Godunov" was totally his character.
Two traits made Kozlovsky the artist he was: his natural musicality and sacred reverence for art.
Sergei Lemeshev.
Lemeshev. The very sound of his name possesses such power that it would be enough for a few generations of singers.
The names of Caruso in Italy and Callas in Greece must have been pronounced with the same reverence and excitement.
They were the glory of the world and the pride of their countries.
Lemeshev was Russia itself even when he sang foreign opera music.
Lemeshev was a singer of Russian vasts and it was Russian repertoire that he preferred,
be it Tchaikovsky's operas, folk songs or Glinka's songs.
Lemeshev's voice timbre, ideally suited for Russian lyrics and Russian melody with its national openness and melancholy,
was one of the things he was most admired for.
Where Kozlovsky had his Holy Fool, Lemeshev had his Lensky.
In this role he seemed to have surpassed Sobinov himself.
In the memory of Russians Sergei Lemeshev will always remain Lensky.
He was a great artist - and Lensky.
A poet of singing - and Lensky.
A charismatic man - and Lensky. He was... and always will be.