Nikolai Golovanov
Nikolai Golovanov (1891–1953) was a Russian and Soviet conductor, choirmaster, pianist, composer, and teacher. Born in Moscow to a poor petty-bourgeois family, he studied at the Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing with Vasily Orlov and Alexander Kastalsky, graduating in 1909 as a first-class regent. He then worked with the Synodal Choir and began appearing as a choral conductor and composer. In 1913 he performed at the Berlin Singing Academy during commemorations of the centenary of the Battle of Leipzig.
Golovanov completed composition studies at the Moscow Conservatory in 1914 under Sergei Vasilenko and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. He made his symphonic-conducting debut with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in 1915 and joined the theatre as assistant choirmaster. He served as a Bolshoi conductor in 1919–1928 and 1930–1936, making his operatic debut there with Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan. From 1948 until his death, he was the Bolshoi Theatre's chief conductor.
From 1919, Golovanov took an active part in Konstantin Stanislavsky's opera studio at the Bolshoi Theatre. In 1938 he became head of the opera department of the institution then known as the Stanislavsky Opera Theatre. With director Mikhail Kedrov, he worked on productions of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor, Vladimir Dekhterev's Princess Mary, and Vladimir Kryukov's Dmitry Donskoy.
He led the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra from 1926 to 1929, founded the Radio Opera Theatre in 1929, and became chief conductor of that theatre and the Moscow radio centre in 1930. Between 1937 and 1953, he was artistic director and chief conductor of the USSR Radio Committee's Grand Symphony Orchestra and Radio Opera Theatre. He also performed with the Orchestra of Folk Instruments from 1936 to 1947 and with the USSR State Wind Orchestra from 1937 to 1940. As a pianist, he frequently accompanied the singer Antonina Nezhdanova, his unregistered wife, as well as Ivan Kozlovsky, Mark Reizen, Maria Maksakova, and Natalya Shpiller between 1916 and 1944.
Golovanov taught at the Synodal School from 1907. He was a professor of orchestral and opera classes at the Moscow Conservatory in 1925–1929 and 1943–1944; his pupils included the conductors Leo Ginzburg and Mikhail Zhukov. His conducting was associated with exact phrasing, dynamic interpretation, and a fusion of symphonic and dramatic elements. He conducted first performances of works by Alexander Grechaninov, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Tikhon Khrennikov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Sergei Prokofiev.
As a composer, Golovanov wrote the opera-cantata Princess Yurata (1914), the opera Heroic Mound, a symphony, an overture on Russian themes, a piano sonata, Prints for piano, Lamento for violin, cello or voice with piano, more than 200 romances, sacred works, symphonic poems, orchestral suites, and arrangements of folk songs from various countries. His music was rarely performed after his death, but orchestral works were revived by the Russian National Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev in 2009–2012, while the Moscow Synodal Choir performed his sacred music.
He received the titles of People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1943 and People's Artist of the USSR in 1948. He was awarded four first-class Stalin Prizes: for concert performance in 1946 and for productions of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko, and Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina in 1949–1951. Golovanov died on 28 August 1953 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.