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London: Pavel Lisitsian, baritone, passes away

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  • London: Pavel Lisitsian, baritone, passes away

    Pavel Lisitsian

    The Times (London)
    August 31, 2004, Tuesday

    Pavel Lisitsian, operatic baritone, was born on November 6, 1911. He
    died on July 6, 2004, aged 92. Russian singer regarded as one of
    the best Verdi baritones of the postwar years but whose career was
    limited by the Cold War

    The Russian baritone Pavel Lisitsian convinced all those fortunate
    enough to have heard him that, in the words of one admirer of his
    recorded Amonasro in Aida, "he may well have been the best Verdi
    baritone of the postwar years". His mastery extended far beyond
    Verdi, both in the theatre and on the concert platform, but since his
    appearances abroad were sorely restricted by the Second World War and
    then by the Cold War and by the suspicion of foreign contacts that it
    engendered in the Soviet authorities, his admirers outside the Soviet
    Union had to content themselves, for the most part, with his records.

    Of Armenian descent, Lisitsian was born Pogos Karapetovich Liseetsian
    in Vladikavkas (Ordzhonikidze), near Grozny, the son of a mineworker.
    Thinking to follow in his father's footsteps, he was apprenticed as a
    welder. As a child he sang in church choirs, and after his voice broke
    his singing as an amateur in workers' concerts soon brought his gifts
    to wider attention. At length, backed by a local workers' co-operative,
    in 1932 he entered the Leningrad Conservatory where he studied for
    three years, during which he continued to work in a factory and also
    took cello lessons. In Leningrad at that time memories were still fresh
    of the methods of the pre-1914 Italian school exemplified by singers
    such as De Luca and Stracciari, and later Lisitsian would always
    describe himself to acquaintances as essentially an Italian singer;
    certainly his command of legato and the beauty of his voice were among
    the qualities that would have appealed to his Italian predecessors.

    His first professional engagement as a soloist was at the Maly Theatre
    in Leningrad in 1935, and in 1937 he was contracted as a principal
    baritone by the theatre at Yerevan in Armenia. In 1940 he joined
    the company of the Bolshoi in Moscow and remained there as a leading
    member of the company until

    he retired from the stage in 1966.

    His success there was immediate, consistent and prolonged. In 1959
    he sang Napoleon in the first complete performance of Prokofiev's War
    and Peace to be staged in Moscow. It was conducted by Melik-Pashayev
    with whom Lisitsian became particularly associated and who, according
    to Galina Vishnevskaya, formed a core of favourite singers

    who also included Andzhaparidze, Arkhipova, Petrov and Vishnevskaya
    herself. Their performances of the great Verdi operas became legendary
    in the postwar decade.

    At the same time Lisitsian continued to appear frequently outside
    Moscow, especially in Armenia, and he reckoned that during the war
    he gave 500 or more concerts to serving Soviet troops.

    The restrictions placed on his travels outside the USSR by a regime
    always worried that their best people might defect have already
    been mentioned. However, in the years of the post-Stalinist "thaw"
    Lisitsian did make a tour of the USA when, in 1960, he appeared at
    the Metropolitan Opera as Amonasro. But the Met at that time still
    retained the services of, among others, Merrill, Warren, MacNeil,
    Zanasi, Sereni and Bastianini, and Lisitsian's debut excited little
    comment, favourable or unfavourable. Elsewhere he won good opinions,
    especially in San Francisco, as much for his recitals of Russian and
    Armenian songs as for his stage appearances. In 1963 he was heard
    also in Western Europe, and was a member of the Bolshoi company which
    visited La Scala, Milan, in 1964, where he sang Eletsky in The Queen
    of Spades and Napoleon.

    After retiring from the Bolshoi in 1966, he travelled widely and
    successfully as a recitalist and was particularly pleased by the
    popularity of the vocal quartet that he formed in 1970 with three
    of his children. From 1967 to 1973 he also taught regularly at the
    Yerevan Conservatory.

    Lisitsian was a handsome presence on stage and an excellent actor.
    His voice was a splendid, high lyric baritone, beautifully trained
    and evenly produced throughout a range of two octaves which extended
    easily to the high A, and without hint of fuzz or wobble.

    His declamation was exemplary, being both clear and vivid, and was
    allied to sure taste and musicality. If his voice was thought a little
    small for Amonasro in so large a theatre as the Met, his powers of
    projection were ample compensation.

    Despite the relatively primitive technology of the Soviet recordings,
    all these qualities can be admired on his records, sung invariably
    in Russian. His Valentin in Faust, recorded in 1947, was described
    by one critic as "simply a great piece of singing under impeccable
    artistic guidance". Another wrote that Lisitsian's Valentin, "in
    glorious voice, is the standard by which to judge the others".
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