Alexander Vedernikov
Alexander Vedernikov was a Soviet and Russian opera and chamber singer with a bass voice, and a music teacher. He was born on December 23, 1927, in Vorobyova Gora or, according to another account, Mokino, in what is now Kirov Oblast. He died in Moscow on January 9, 2018.
From 1943 to 1947, Vedernikov studied at the Korkino Mining Technical School and took art classes at a local club. He later studied for two years at the Tchaikovsky Sverdlovsk Music College, then graduated from the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory in 1955, where he studied with Rosa Alpert-Khasina. From 1955 to 1958 he was a soloist at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre in Leningrad, now the Mariinsky Theatre. He joined the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1958 and remained a soloist there until 1990. In 1960–61, he trained at La Scala in Milan with Maestro Barra.
Vedernikov also performed extensively in concerts, with a chamber repertoire that included Russian and international composers. He performed nearly all the bass roles in Russian operas and worked closely with composer Georgy Sviridov. In 1959, he was the first performer of the Poet's role in Sviridov's Pathetic Oratorio, set to words by Vladimir Mayakovsky. His concert repertoire included Sviridov's songs on poems by Robert Burns, Alexander Pushkin, Sergei Yesenin, Fyodor Tyutchev, Alexander Blok, and William Shakespeare. He made his international touring debut in 1954.
From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a vocal consultant at the Bolshoi Theatre, where many of its soloists were his students. In 2008, he became artistic director of the Russian Opera Theatre in Moscow, which closed in 2015. At the age of 80, he made his stage debut as Solopiy Cherevik in Mussorgsky's Sorochintsy Fair at the theatre. His discography includes more than thirty recordings of romances, songs, arias, and oratorios. He described his work in the 1989 book So That the Soul Does Not Grow Poor.
Vedernikov won second prize at the 1953 performers' competition of the World Festival of Youth and Students in Bucharest. In 1956, he won first prize at the Schumann International Vocal Competition in Berlin and first prize at the All-Union Competition for Performances of Works by Soviet Composers. He was named People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1967 and People's Artist of the USSR in 1976. He received the USSR State Prize in 1969 for his concert programs of 1966–67 and 1967–68.
Organizations
1