Zara Dolukhanova

Zara Dolukhanova is often cited as the best Soviet mezzo-soprano of her period. Her powerful, versatile voice was generally categorized being a coloratura mezzo, but her vocal range also allowed her to sing convincingly as an alto. Dolukhanova was as very much a superstar in the Soviet Union in the middle-20th hundred years as Callas and Tebaldi had been in the Western world. She commanded an enormous repertory including works which range from J.S. Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi to Mozart, Rossini and Tchaikovsky and to Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Khachaturian. She sang folk and traditional music aswell, and was most widely known over the operatic stage on her behalf Rossini, especially as Angelina in La cenerentola and Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri. But Dolukhanova can be remembered being a recitalist, gaining herself the popularity among the world’s most significant interpreters of artwork music, becoming a type of feminine counterpart to Fischer-Dieskau. Dolukhanova, who retired in 1970, produced many recordings plus some are still on reissue from Gala, Guild, Preiser, and Myto. Zara Dolukhanova was created Zara Makaryan on March 5, 1918, in Moscow. Her parents had been Armenian; her dad was a flutist, clarinetist, and trumpeter and her mom a good beginner singer. Dolukhanova initial examined piano and violin, with the relatively past due age group of 16 enrolled on the Gnessin Institute in Moscow for vocal research. She debuted in 1938 as Siébel in Gounod’s Faust on the Yerevan Opera in Armenia. After spending 3 years on the Yerevan Opera, Dolukhanova wedded composer Alexander Dolukhanian and thereafter performed under her wedded name. From 1944, she sang being a soloist for Moscow Radio. In the postwar years she steadily built her profession in opera, concert, and recital fare. In 1959 she became a normal soloist using the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. She toured European countries as well as the Americas, producing her U.S. debut in 1959 at Carnegie Hall, sketching ratings of rave testimonials. Dolukhanova was incredibly active through the entire 1960s, but soon after a come back tour towards the U.S. in 1970, she retired from performing. She spent a lot of the remainder of her profession being a teacher on the Gnessin Institute, keeping track of among her learners mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina. Dolukhanova passed away in Moscow on Dec 5, 2007. Among her even more important recordings may be the 2005 Guild recording, The Russian Legacy – Zara Dolukhanova, a four-CD assortment of tracks and arias by 31 different composers, from Carissimi to Medtner.