Samuil Stolerman was a Russian and Soviet conductor and actor. He was born in Kyakhta on December 21, 1874, and died in Kyiv on December 22, 1949. He was named Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR in 1924 and People's Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1937.
The son of a poor Jewish tailor, Stolerman joined the Irkutsk military wind orchestra and served there for eight years. In the mid-1890s, he first conducted a string orchestra at a drama theater. He later worked with a touring operetta company and began conducting operas. From 1905, he studied conducting at the Moscow Conservatory with Professor Vasily Safonov, who helped him secure a conducting post at the People's House theater. After conducting Ruslan and Lyudmila and The Tsar's Bride there, Stolerman was invited to Krasnoyarsk to lead its symphony orchestra.
In 1907–1908, he conducted an opera company in Perm. He also worked in Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk, Moscow, Tbilisi, Baku, and other cities. In 1920, on the eve of a performance of the opera Abesalom and Eteri, he shot and killed his wife after prolonged family conflicts; the article states that he effectively received no punishment.
From 1927 to 1944, Stolerman was chief conductor and music director of the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater. Pianist Sviatoslav Richter recalled that Stolerman was highly professional and honest, and that he learned much while working under his direction. From 1944 until his death, Stolerman was chief conductor of the Taras Shevchenko Opera and Ballet Theater in Kyiv.
Stolerman worked closely with composers from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine, and conducted the premieres of many works. These included Alexander Spendiaryan's Almast in Ukrainian, Georgian, and Armenian; Dmitry Arakishvili's The Legend of Shota Rustaveli; Viktor Dolidze's Keto and Kote and Leila; Meliton Balanchivadze's Darejan the Deceitful; and Boris Lyatoshinsky's The Golden Hoop (also known as Zakhar Berkut). His other productions included Wagner's Lohengrin, Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Verdi's Aida, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Bizet's Carmen, and Mykola Lysenko's Taras Bulba and The Drowned Maiden.
In 1945, he appeared as an Artist in the film The Unvanquished. He wrote a memoir, My Creative Path over Forty Years, published in 1937.