Erik Kurmangaliev

Erik Salimovich Kurmangaliev was a Soviet, Russian and Kazakh singer, a countertenor known for his exceptionally rare male alto voice. He was born on January 2, 1959, in Kulsary, Guryev Region, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, into a family of doctors: his father was a surgeon and his mother a pediatrician. As a child he sang songs from the repertory of Olga Voronets and Lyudmila Zykina, imitating female voices, and at the age of twelve he became deeply interested in classical music. His first experience on stage came at the Kirov Secondary School in Guryev, where he played Cinderella's stepmother in a school drama group.

After finishing school in 1976, he entered the Alma-Ata Conservatory in the music-pedagogy department, studying with A. Polikarkin. For the entrance examination he sang an aria from Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans. His unusual voice immediately set him apart: he possessed a male alto timbre that allowed him to perform female parts, and he was regarded as a unique phenomenon. Kurmangaliev later recalled that people tried to retrain him because a man singing in what was perceived as a woman's voice was difficult to accept in the Soviet musical world. He came to understand the full singularity of his vocal gifts only after moving to Moscow.

His path to the capital was difficult. He reached Moscow almost by hitchhiking, traveling without money after leaving the preparatory division of the Alma-Ata Conservatory against his parents' wishes. He was refused admission to the Moscow Conservatory, but entered the Gnessin State Musical-Pedagogical Institute instead. There, his vocal examinations reportedly provoked hours of discussion, and he remained constantly on the brink of expulsion. After his first year he was dismissed for failing an examination in scientific communism, then served in the army, where he played bass drum in a regimental orchestra of the motorized rifle forces. After military service he was reinstated at the institute.

While studying at the Gnessin Institute in the class of N. N. Shilnikova, he made his debut as a concert singer in 1980 on the stage of the Great Hall of the Shostakovich Leningrad Philharmonic in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, singing the alto part under conductor Anton Sharoev. That same year he came to the attention of Alfred Schnittke when Valery Polyansky was preparing Schnittke's Symphony No. 2. The composer had believed that no singer in the Soviet Union possessed the necessary kind of voice, and hearing Kurmangaliev reportedly shocked him. This encounter began an important collaboration, and Kurmangaliev became the first performer of the countertenor part in several works by Schnittke, including Symphony No. 2, the cantata The History of Doctor Johann Faust, and Symphony No. 4.

He graduated from the Gnessin Institute in 1985, singing the page Cherubino in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro for his diploma performance. He then undertook postgraduate training at the Moscow Conservatory with Professor Nina Dorliak and also attended master classes with I. Biener, A. Reynolds, F. Curtin, and R. Caselli. Alongside his studies and concert work, he performed extensively in opera and solo programs on leading stages around the world. In 1987 he became a laureate of the International Competition for Young Singers in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. In 1988, at a music festival in Boston, the press called him a phenomenon and drew parallels with the celebrated opera singer Fedora Barbieri.

Kurmangaliev built a broad repertory that included Handel, Rossini, Purcell, Bach, Vivaldi, Gluck, Mozart, Stradella, Saint-Saens, Haydn, Bellini, Puccini, Meyerbeer, Franck, Cherubini, Bizet, Verdi, Caccini, Schubert, Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Rimsky-Korsakov. He performed leading roles in Handel's Admeto, Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea, and Bortnyansky's Alcides in concert form. He appeared with conductors including Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Dmitry Kitayenko, Fuat Mansurov, Tatyana Grindenko, and Saulius Sondeckis. He sang Orpheus in Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice in St. Petersburg, Lviv, and Ufa; Prince Orlovsky in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus at Helikon Opera in Moscow; and Tancredi in Rossini's Tancredi in Vilnius. From 1997 onward he performed regularly in Riga, including in Riga Cathedral, Ave Sol Hall, and the Great Guild, by invitation of impresario Vladimir Reshetov, and he also performed in Paris at the invitation of Pierre Cardin.

Although admired in classical music circles, he achieved broad fame in Russia in 1992 through his dramatic role as Song Liling in Roman Viktyuk's production of M. Butterfly, based on the play by David Henry Hwang. His performance caused a sensation: many spectators found it hard to believe that the role was being played by a man, and his combination of vocal and theatrical artistry became central to the production's success. In 1992 he was recognized as Best Actor of the Year for this role. He was also a regular participant, by invitation of Sviatoslav Richter, in the international festival December Evenings, and he appeared with A. Vertinskaya in a production by Anatoly Efros based on Shakespeare, using fragments from Purcell's The Tempest, in the role of Ariel-Prospero.

His recordings were issued on LP and compact disc, including Bach cantatas and Schnittke symphonies. His discography included releases of Schnittke's Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 4, Bach's Cantata BWV 201, and the album Alto. In 1993 he was entered in the record book Divo 93: Miracles, Records, Achievements. In 1996 he was awarded the honorary title People's Artist of Kazakhstan for services to the art of Kazakh classical music. In 2002 he gave a gala concert in Moscow at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. In 2005 he took part in the Riga stage pasticcio The Abduction of Farinelli, created by Vladimir Reshetov for the 300th anniversary of Carlo Broschi, and he also appeared in Rustam Khamdamov's film Vocal Parallels.

In his later years he sometimes performed under the name Salim-Meruert, formed from the names of his late parents. He was described by the RIA Novosti agency as the first countertenor in the USSR. Kurmangaliev died in Moscow on November 13, 2007, from liver disease. Memorial events in his honor followed, including the dedication of the gala concert of the Farinelli-Fest Baroque music festival in Riga in 2008 and the memorial concert Vocal Parallels at Astana Opera in 2019, both testifying to the lasting impression left by his singular voice and stage presence.

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