Fyodor Petrovich Komissarzhevsky
Encyclopedia
Fyodor Petrovich Komissarzhevsky (Russian: ) (1832 - 14 March 1905) was a Russian opera singer and teacher of voice and stagecraft. A leading tenor
at the Mariinsky Theatre
in St. Petersburg, he created many roles in Russian opera
s, including the Pretender in Mussorgsky
's Boris Godunov
and the title role in Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith
. He had a voice described in the Grove Book of Opera Singers
as small but with a "velvety timbre" and as a singer was known for not only for his clear diction and beautiful phrasing but also for his skill as an actor. He was the father of the actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya
and the director Theodore Komisarjevsky
.
Komissarzhevsky was born near Kiev
and after studying law at St. Petersburg University worked in the Russian Department of Taxation. However, after three years and against the wishes of his father, he gave up his career as a lawyer to study singing in Italy with Pietro Repetto. He then sang, under the name "Teodoro di Pietro", in Milan, Rome, Florence and Genoa, as well as in Odessa, Madrid, Barcelona, and even Rio de Janiero. In 1863, while in St. Petersburg with a touring Italian opera company, his success with the audiences brought him to the attention of the inspectors of the Mariinsky Theatre
, who offered him a position as leading tenor with the company. He took up his appointment with the theatre in November 1863 and went on to create many roles there, most notably, Don Juan in Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest
(1872), the Pretender in Mussorgsky
's Boris Godunov
(1874), Prince Sinodal in Rubinstein
's The Demon
(1875), and the title role in Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith
(1876). Later Tchaikovsky would dedicate one of his songs to him ("Say of What, in the Shade of Branches" Op. 57, No. 1). At the Mariinsky, he also sang the title role of Wagner's Lohengrin
for its Russian premiere in 1873.
Komissarzhevsky remained at the Mariinsky Theatre until 1880 and then moved to Moscow where he sang at the Bolshoi Theatre
as well as directing several operas there, including The Magic Flute
and Cherubini's The Water Carrier
(an opera hitherto unknown in Moscow). Following his retirement from the stage, Komissarzhevsky taught singing and acting at the Moscow Conservatory
from 1883 to 1888. Amongst his private students was Constantin Stanislavsky, who had originally hoped to become an opera singer. When Stanislavsky founded the Society of Art Literaure in 1888, Komissarzhevsky became the first head of the operatic and musical section of its school. He parted company with the Society after a year and then spent some years at the conservatory in Tblisi where he taught singing as well as writing reviews. After Tblisi he went to Italy, travelling around the country until he finally settled in the coastal town of Sanremo
. Komissarzhevsky died there on 14 March 1905 at the age of 74 while tending his roses. He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome
where the inscription on his gravestone reads:
. The couple met when Mariya Nikolaevna took singing lessons from Komissarzhevsky and married despite her father's opposition. Their first child Vera Komissarzhevskaya
, born in 1864 and her father's favourite, was to become a leading Russian actress. Three more children followed, Olga, Nadezhda, and a son Grisha. Grisha drowned when he was six years old. Anton Chekhov
later incorporated a fictionalised account of the tragedy in his 1904 play The Cherry Orchard
. Vera died of smallpox
in Tashkent
in 1910, while on a theatrical tour. Olga lived in Paris for a while and became a sculptor of some note. She returned to Russia in 1910 and after 1914 disappeared while serving as a missionary. Nadezhda also became an actress. Known as Nadezhda Skarskaya, she and her husband, the actor Pavel Gaideburov, ran a travelling theatre troupe and a successful theatre in Moscow. She also acted in several early Soviet films and remained in the Soviet Union all her life, dying there in 1958 at the age of 89.
In 1880, Komissarzhevsky had abandoned the family for his mistress, Princess Mariya Kurtsevich, who like his first wife had been one of his pupils. By 1882, she was pregnant with their son, Fyodor. His first wife agreed to a divorce as the guilty party so that he and his mistress could marry and their child could be legitimised
. Fyodor became a famous theatre director, known outside Russia as Theodore Komisarjevsky
. He emigrated to Britain in 1921 and later lived in the United States, where he died in 1954. Fyodor's younger brother Nikolai, who became a writer, remained in Russia and was executed during Joseph Stalin
's Great Purge
in 1938.
By the late 1880s Komissarzhevsky's second marriage had also foundered, and he was to spend the rest of his life essentially alone, although he frequently corresponded with his first wife and with his daughter Vera, who would also visit him as much as she could. Towards the end of his life he wrote to her mother:
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
at the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
in St. Petersburg, he created many roles in Russian opera
Russian opera
Russian opera is the art of opera in Russia. Operas by composers of Russian origin, written or staged outside of Russia, also belong to this category, as well as the operas of foreign composers written or intended for the Russian scene. These are not only Russian-language operas...
s, including the Pretender in Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
's Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
and the title role in Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith
Vakula the Smith
Vakula the Smith , is an opera in 3 acts, 8 scenes, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, his Opus 14. The libretto was written by Yakov Polonsky and is based on Nikolai Gogol's story Christmas Eve . It was written for composer Alexander Serov, who died in 1871 leaving only fragments of an opera on the subject...
. He had a voice described in the Grove Book of Opera Singers
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
as small but with a "velvety timbre" and as a singer was known for not only for his clear diction and beautiful phrasing but also for his skill as an actor. He was the father of the actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya
Vera Komissarzhevskaya
Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya was the most celebrated Russian actress at the turn of the twentieth century.Vera Komissarzhevskaya was the daughter of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, a leading tenor of the Mariinsky Theatre, and sister of Theodore Komisarjevsky, a famous theatrical director...
and the director Theodore Komisarjevsky
Theodore Komisarjevsky
Fyodor Fyodorovich Komissarzhevsky or Theodore Komisarjevsky, as he is better known in the West, was a Russian theatrical director and designer. He began his career in Moscow, but had his greatest influence in London...
.
Biography
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and after studying law at St. Petersburg University worked in the Russian Department of Taxation. However, after three years and against the wishes of his father, he gave up his career as a lawyer to study singing in Italy with Pietro Repetto. He then sang, under the name "Teodoro di Pietro", in Milan, Rome, Florence and Genoa, as well as in Odessa, Madrid, Barcelona, and even Rio de Janiero. In 1863, while in St. Petersburg with a touring Italian opera company, his success with the audiences brought him to the attention of the inspectors of the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Theatre
The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. The...
, who offered him a position as leading tenor with the company. He took up his appointment with the theatre in November 1863 and went on to create many roles there, most notably, Don Juan in Dargomyzhsky's The Stone Guest
The Stone Guest (Dargomyzhsky)
The Stone Guest is an opera in three acts by Alexander Dargomyzhsky. The libretto was taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's like-named play in blank verse , with slight changes in wording and the interpolation of two songs indicated in the play...
(1872), the Pretender in Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
's Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
(1874), Prince Sinodal in Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
's The Demon
The Demon (opera)
The Demon is an opera in three acts by Russian composer Anton Rubinstein. The work was composed in 1871. The libretto was by Pavel Viskovatov, based on the poem of the same name by Mikhail Lermontov.-Background:...
(1875), and the title role in Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith
Vakula the Smith
Vakula the Smith , is an opera in 3 acts, 8 scenes, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, his Opus 14. The libretto was written by Yakov Polonsky and is based on Nikolai Gogol's story Christmas Eve . It was written for composer Alexander Serov, who died in 1871 leaving only fragments of an opera on the subject...
(1876). Later Tchaikovsky would dedicate one of his songs to him ("Say of What, in the Shade of Branches" Op. 57, No. 1). At the Mariinsky, he also sang the title role of Wagner's Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
for its Russian premiere in 1873.
Komissarzhevsky remained at the Mariinsky Theatre until 1880 and then moved to Moscow where he sang at the Bolshoi Theatre
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
as well as directing several operas there, including The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
and Cherubini's The Water Carrier
Les deux journées
Les deux journées, ou Le porteur d'eau is an opera in three acts by Luigi Cherubini with a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly. It takes the form of an opéra comique, meaning not that the subject matter is humorous, but that the piece is a mixture of spoken dialogue and musical numbers...
(an opera hitherto unknown in Moscow). Following his retirement from the stage, Komissarzhevsky taught singing and acting at the Moscow Conservatory
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
from 1883 to 1888. Amongst his private students was Constantin Stanislavsky, who had originally hoped to become an opera singer. When Stanislavsky founded the Society of Art Literaure in 1888, Komissarzhevsky became the first head of the operatic and musical section of its school. He parted company with the Society after a year and then spent some years at the conservatory in Tblisi where he taught singing as well as writing reviews. After Tblisi he went to Italy, travelling around the country until he finally settled in the coastal town of Sanremo
Sanremo
Sanremo or San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, the city is best known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival...
. Komissarzhevsky died there on 14 March 1905 at the age of 74 while tending his roses. He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome
Protestant Cemetery, Rome
The Protestant Cemetery , now officially called the Cimitero acattolico and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated...
where the inscription on his gravestone reads:
"Teodoro Komisarjevsky di Pietro, artist of the Italian opera and the Imperial Opera of St. Petersburg, professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and a soldier in Garibaldi's legionsExpedition of the ThousandThe Expedition of the Thousand was a military campaign led by the revolutionary general Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860. A force of volunteers defeated the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, leading to its dissolution and annexation by the Kingdom of Sardinia, an important step in the creation of a newly...
, died on the soil of his beloved Italy."
Family
Komissarzhevsky's first wife was Mariya Nikolaevna Shulgina, the daughter of General Nikolai Shulgin, a war hero and officer in the Preobrazhensky regimentPreobrazhensky regiment
The Preobrazhensky Regiment was one of the oldest and elite regiments of the Russian army. Along with the Semenovsky regiment also served as a gendarmie unit for the state Secret Chancellery in the 18th century, headed by the Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky.It was formed by Peter the Great in the late...
. The couple met when Mariya Nikolaevna took singing lessons from Komissarzhevsky and married despite her father's opposition. Their first child Vera Komissarzhevskaya
Vera Komissarzhevskaya
Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya was the most celebrated Russian actress at the turn of the twentieth century.Vera Komissarzhevskaya was the daughter of Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, a leading tenor of the Mariinsky Theatre, and sister of Theodore Komisarjevsky, a famous theatrical director...
, born in 1864 and her father's favourite, was to become a leading Russian actress. Three more children followed, Olga, Nadezhda, and a son Grisha. Grisha drowned when he was six years old. Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
later incorporated a fictionalised account of the tragedy in his 1904 play The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
. Vera died of smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
in Tashkent
Tashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
in 1910, while on a theatrical tour. Olga lived in Paris for a while and became a sculptor of some note. She returned to Russia in 1910 and after 1914 disappeared while serving as a missionary. Nadezhda also became an actress. Known as Nadezhda Skarskaya, she and her husband, the actor Pavel Gaideburov, ran a travelling theatre troupe and a successful theatre in Moscow. She also acted in several early Soviet films and remained in the Soviet Union all her life, dying there in 1958 at the age of 89.
In 1880, Komissarzhevsky had abandoned the family for his mistress, Princess Mariya Kurtsevich, who like his first wife had been one of his pupils. By 1882, she was pregnant with their son, Fyodor. His first wife agreed to a divorce as the guilty party so that he and his mistress could marry and their child could be legitimised
Legitimacy (law)
At common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children...
. Fyodor became a famous theatre director, known outside Russia as Theodore Komisarjevsky
Theodore Komisarjevsky
Fyodor Fyodorovich Komissarzhevsky or Theodore Komisarjevsky, as he is better known in the West, was a Russian theatrical director and designer. He began his career in Moscow, but had his greatest influence in London...
. He emigrated to Britain in 1921 and later lived in the United States, where he died in 1954. Fyodor's younger brother Nikolai, who became a writer, remained in Russia and was executed during Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
in 1938.
By the late 1880s Komissarzhevsky's second marriage had also foundered, and he was to spend the rest of his life essentially alone, although he frequently corresponded with his first wife and with his daughter Vera, who would also visit him as much as she could. Towards the end of his life he wrote to her mother:
Vera!? To say that she is often in my thoughts... would be an understatement, for never a moment passes without my thinking of her! My whole being rests on my feelings and my thoughts about her. She is to my spirit what air is to physical existence! Human being, friend, daughter, sister, family—everything is concentrated in her alone...
Sources
- Borovsky, Victor, A Triptych from the Russian Theatre: An Artistic Biography of the Komissarzhevskys, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2001. ISBN 1850654123
- Carnegy, Patrick, Wagner and the Art of the Theatre, Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN 0300106955
- Semeonoff, Boris, "Komissarzhevsky, Fyodor Petrovich", The Grove Book of Opera Singers, Laura Macy (ed), Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 253. ISBN 0195337654
- Swift, Eugène Anthony, Popular Theater and Society in Tsarist Russia , University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 0520225945
- Sylvester, Richard D., Tchaikovsky's Complete Songs, Indiana University Press, 2004. ISBN 0253216761