Boris Khaikin was a Soviet conductor and music teacher, born in Minsk on 13 (26) October 1904. He studied piano at the Penza Music School from 1915 to 1919 with Lev Shor, then studied conducting with Nikolai Malko and Konstantin Saradzhev and piano with Alexander Goedicke at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1928.
After graduating, Khaikin joined the Stanislavsky Opera Theatre in Moscow. He worked there from 1928 to 1935, becoming head of its music department in 1933 and chief conductor in 1935. His productions included Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Bizet’s Carmen. Konstantin Stanislavsky influenced his artistic principles.
In 1936 Khaikin moved to Leningrad to lead the Leningrad Maly Opera Theatre as artistic director and chief conductor, and he also taught at the Leningrad Conservatory as a professor. He conducted the premieres of Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Kola Bruignon in 1938 and Ivan Dzerzhinsky’s Virgin Soil Upturned in 1937. His repertoire there also included operas by Modest Mussorgsky, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
In 1943 he became head of the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre in Leningrad. His work there included Sergei Prokofiev’s The Duenna and The Story of a Real Man, Kabalevsky’s The Taras Family, Dzerzhinsky’s Prince Lake, and Yuri Shaporin’s The Decembrists. He returned to Moscow in 1954 and became a conductor at the Bolshoi Theatre, where he led productions of Russian and European opera, including works by Mozart, Wagner, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Khaikin also conducted abroad, including productions of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina in Florence and Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades in Leipzig. He conducted Eugene Onegin in Prague, Brno, and Bratislava, and Gounod’s Faust in Romania. In 1966 he toured Italy with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra as a symphonic conductor.
He taught conducting at the Moscow Conservatory during several periods between 1925 and 1978, becoming a professor in 1954. His students included Kirill Kondrashin and Mark Ermler. He also wrote more than 250 articles on music. Khaikin received three Stalin Prizes for his work on opera productions and was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1972. He died in Moscow on 10 May 1978 and was buried at New Donskoye Cemetery after cremation.