Elizabeth Lavrovskaya was a Russian opera and concert singer, contralto, and music teacher. She was born in Kashin on October 13, 1845. After her family moved to Moscow in 1851, she studied at the Moscow Elizabeth Institute and began vocal training with the Italian teacher Fenzi. She later attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where she studied with Henriette Nissen-Saloman. With support from Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, she continued her education and graduated in 1868 with the conservatory’s large silver medal.
Lavrovskaya joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 1868 and sang there during 1868–72 and 1879–80; in 1890–91 she performed at the Bolshoi Theatre. She also gave concerts in Russia and abroad, appearing in London, Paris, Berlin, and Milan. In Paris, Gioachino Rossini and the director of the Grand Opera heard her sing and praised her talent. She studied with Pauline Viardot in Baden and later continued her vocal studies with Viardot-Garcia in Paris. In 1873 she married Prince Pavel Tsertelev.
Critics and composers admired the range, evenness, and timbre of her voice. Her roles included Vanya in A Life for the Tsar, the Princess in Rusalka, Fidès in The Prophet, Ratmir in Ruslan and Lyudmila, Rogneda in Rogneda, Grunya in The Enemy’s Power, Orpheus in Orpheus and Eurydice, Siebel in Faust, and Azucena in The Troubadour. She also sang Morozova in Tchaikovsky’s The Oprichnik, a role written with her voice in mind.
From 1888 until her death, Lavrovskaya taught at the Moscow Conservatory; in 1917 she was named a distinguished professor. Tchaikovsky regarded her as one of the leading representatives of the Russian vocal school. She suggested to him the subject of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, and he dedicated six romances, Op. 27, and the vocal quartet Night to her. Sergei Rachmaninoff dedicated two romances to her, and Sergei Taneyev dedicated the romance People Are Asleep. Two audio recordings of her singing survive, as does a short 1890 phonograph recording made by Julius Block. Lavrovskaya died in Moscow on February 4, 1919, in extreme poverty.