Lyudmila Maksakova
Encyclopedia
Lyudmila Maksakova is a Soviet theater and film actress. Maksakova, who appeared in 24 films between 1965
and 1998
, was assignated People's Artist of Russia
(1980); she is a laureate of the USSR State Prize
(1995) and the prestigious Stanislavsky Prize (1996). She is the daugter of a renown Soviet mezzo-soprano
Maria Maksakova, Sr.
and mother of Maria Maksakova, Jr.
, an opera singer and Russian TV Kultura
presenter.
general Vasily Novikov (hence the middle name, Vasilienva). This controversy was also the reason for the atmosphere of secrecy that the girl has been grown in. With rumours spreading around concerning her origins (one had it that she'd been the daughter of none other than Stalin, who'd treated the famous Bolshoi
singer as a favourite), Lyudmila was being kept mostly at home, so as "not to get too much unwanted impressions", as her mother put it. It was only in the Moscow Central music school where she studied cello
that the girl would be able to socialize with peers.
After the graduation from both schools (the secondary and the musical) simultaneously, Lyudmila has opted against pursuing musical career and enrolled at the prestigious Schukin theater college, to study in the actor Vladimir Etush
class. In 1961 she graduated from the College and joined the Vakhtangov Theater, the troupe she knew well, since she'd been performing with it already, while a student. The first two parts Lyudmila Maksakova has been given there were those of Masha Tchubukova in Kookie in Marriage (by Anatoly Sofronov) and Masha in The Living Corpse after Leo Tolstoy. Her breakthrough came two years later when she took upon herself the part of the Tatar princess Adelma in the famous Vakhtangov production of Princess Turandot, revived by director Ruben Simonov
. This performance, full of swagger and charm, highlighted the young actress' best qualities and made her an overnight sensation in the Moscow theater circles. In the years to come she was lauded by theater critics in heroic parts (Lolya, Dion; Knipper-Chekhova, My Whimsical Happines), as well as comic (Nicol, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
), lyrical (Maria, The Cavalry Army after Babel) and dramatic (Mamayeva, Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man) ones.
In 1964 Maksakova debuted on screen as Nina in Grigory Chukhray's There Was an Old Couple
. Over the next ten years she had leading parts in revolutionary history drama Tatiana's Day (as Tatiana Ogneva, the young workers' leader), psychological melodrama Not Guilty (Natasha) and tragic melodrama The Bad Good Man (Nadezhda). The 1977 marriage to a German citizen Peter Igenbergs all but finished Maksakova's career: her photos have been removed from the press and life in theater became difficult, then collaborations with guesting theater directors from abroad (Miroslav Belovich, A. Kovalchik) saw its successful re-launch.
Praised were her leading parts in Roman Viktyuk's Anna Karenina 1983 production (based on Mikhail Roshchin
's remake of Leo Tolstoy
's classic) which was followed by The Lady Without Camellias (after Terence Rattigan
's play, Paola), Soboryane (based on Leskov's novel, Bizyukina) and I Don't Know You From Now On, Dear (after Aldo De Benedetti
's play, Louise). In 1990 Maksakova debuted as a co-director in Viktyuk's take on David Pawnell's The Master's Lessons staged at Vakhtangov's. Maksakova's notable film works of the were The Old Russian Vaudevilles' Evening (1979) where she played five women, Igor Talankin's drama Father Sergius (after Leo Tolstoy's short story, Makovkina) and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, the Ian Frid's musical film after Johann Strauss Strauss
' classic where she starred opposite brothers Yuri and Vitaly Solomin
.
Critics lauded her works in Stanislav Govorukhin
's Ten Little Negroes
(1987, as Miss Brent) , Pyotr Todorovsky
's By the Main Street with an Orchestra (1986, as Alla Maksimovna) and Pyotr Fomenko's melodrama Old Car Ridings (Zoya Pavlovna). The latter marked the beginning of successful collaboration the climax of which was the Alexander Ostrovsky's Guilty Without Fault production that has earned Maksakova The USSR State Prize
(1995) and the Stanislavsky Prize (1996). Two more renown Fomenko productions, Queen of Spades (1998) and The Resurrection (1999, after Maurice Maeterlinck
's Le Miracle de saint Antoine) were starring Maksakova. In 2000s she started to teach at the Schukin's Theater College and her appearances on stage and on screen became rarer.
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
and 1998
1998 in film
-Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:...
, was assignated People's Artist of Russia
People's Artist
People's Artist is a honorary title in the Soviet Union, Union republics, in some other Eastern bloc states , as well as in a number of post-Soviet states, modeled after the title of the People's Artist of the USSR....
(1980); she is a laureate of the USSR State Prize
USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize was the Soviet Union's state honour. It was established on September 9, 1966. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the prize was followed up by the State Prize of the Russian Federation....
(1995) and the prestigious Stanislavsky Prize (1996). She is the daugter of a renown Soviet mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
Maria Maksakova, Sr.
Maria Maksakova, Sr.
Maria Petrovna Maksakova, Senior was a renown Soviet opera singer , a leading soloist in the Bolshoi Theater , who enjoyed great success in the 1920s and 1930s, in the times often referred to as the Golden Age of the Soviet opera...
and mother of Maria Maksakova, Jr.
Maria Maksakova, Jr.
Maria Petrovna Maksakova, Junior is a Russian opera singer, a guest soloist with Bolshoi Theater , soloist with Moscow’s Helikon-Opera and Mariinsky Opera Company...
, an opera singer and Russian TV Kultura
TV Kultura
Rossiya K is a Russian television network, broadcasting culture and arts-oriented shows. It belongs to the state-controlled VGTRK group.Broadcasts started on 1 November 1997. It was initially called RTR-2, then renamed Kultura on 1 January 1998 and finally on 1 January 2010 it was rebranded as...
presenter.
Biography
Lyudmila Maksakova was born in Moscow, on September 26, 1940, to Soviet opera diva Maria Maksakova and theater entrepreneur Aleksander Volkov, whom her mother never married and who in 1942 deflected to the West, later to re-surface in the USA as a drama school founder. That incidence was the reason why for many years Lyudmila was unaware of her father's identity. By keeping it secret, Maria Maksakova was protecting her daughter from serious trouble at the time when any link to 'a traitor' could be regarded crime against the state; according to the family legend, her father might have been NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
general Vasily Novikov (hence the middle name, Vasilienva). This controversy was also the reason for the atmosphere of secrecy that the girl has been grown in. With rumours spreading around concerning her origins (one had it that she'd been the daughter of none other than Stalin, who'd treated the famous Bolshoi
Bolshoi
Bolshoi may refer to:*Bolshoi Theatre, a major ballet and opera theatre in Moscow, Russia**Bolshoi Ballet, resident ballet company at the Bolshoi Theatre**Moscow State Academy of Choreography, commonly known as The Bolshoi Ballet Academy...
singer as a favourite), Lyudmila was being kept mostly at home, so as "not to get too much unwanted impressions", as her mother put it. It was only in the Moscow Central music school where she studied cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
that the girl would be able to socialize with peers.
After the graduation from both schools (the secondary and the musical) simultaneously, Lyudmila has opted against pursuing musical career and enrolled at the prestigious Schukin theater college, to study in the actor Vladimir Etush
Vladimir Etush
Vladimir Abramovich Etush is a Soviet film and television actor and a People's Artist of the USSR , an honorary title granted to citizens of the Soviet Union.- Filmography :* The Gadfly...
class. In 1961 she graduated from the College and joined the Vakhtangov Theater, the troupe she knew well, since she'd been performing with it already, while a student. The first two parts Lyudmila Maksakova has been given there were those of Masha Tchubukova in Kookie in Marriage (by Anatoly Sofronov) and Masha in The Living Corpse after Leo Tolstoy. Her breakthrough came two years later when she took upon herself the part of the Tatar princess Adelma in the famous Vakhtangov production of Princess Turandot, revived by director Ruben Simonov
Ruben Simonov
Ruben Simonov was a Soviet artist and director, Peoples Artist of the USSR, Professor. Awarded by the State Prize of the USSR title ....
. This performance, full of swagger and charm, highlighted the young actress' best qualities and made her an overnight sensation in the Moscow theater circles. In the years to come she was lauded by theater critics in heroic parts (Lolya, Dion; Knipper-Chekhova, My Whimsical Happines), as well as comic (Nicol, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme is a five-act comédie-ballet—a play intermingled with music, dance and singing—by Molière, first presented on 14 October 1670 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord by Molière's troupe of actors...
), lyrical (Maria, The Cavalry Army after Babel) and dramatic (Mamayeva, Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man) ones.
In 1964 Maksakova debuted on screen as Nina in Grigory Chukhray's There Was an Old Couple
There Was an Old Couple
There Was an Old Couple is a 1965 Soviet drama film directed by Grigori Chukhrai. It was entered into the 1965 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Ivan Marin - The Old Man, Gusakov* Vera Kuznetsova - The Old Woman, Gusakova* Lyudmila Maksakova - Nina...
. Over the next ten years she had leading parts in revolutionary history drama Tatiana's Day (as Tatiana Ogneva, the young workers' leader), psychological melodrama Not Guilty (Natasha) and tragic melodrama The Bad Good Man (Nadezhda). The 1977 marriage to a German citizen Peter Igenbergs all but finished Maksakova's career: her photos have been removed from the press and life in theater became difficult, then collaborations with guesting theater directors from abroad (Miroslav Belovich, A. Kovalchik) saw its successful re-launch.
Praised were her leading parts in Roman Viktyuk's Anna Karenina 1983 production (based on Mikhail Roshchin
Mikhail Roshchin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Roshchin was a Russian playwright, screenwriter and short story writer.-Biography:Born to Mikhail N. Gibelman and Claudia Tarasovna Efimov-Tyurkin , Roshchin spent his early childhood in Sevastopol...
's remake of Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
's classic) which was followed by The Lady Without Camellias (after Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
's play, Paola), Soboryane (based on Leskov's novel, Bizyukina) and I Don't Know You From Now On, Dear (after Aldo De Benedetti
Aldo De Benedetti
Aldo De Benedetti was an Italian screenwriter. He wrote for 118 films between 1920 and 1982.He was born and died in Rome, Italy.-Selected filmography:* What Scoundrels Men Are! * Mr...
's play, Louise). In 1990 Maksakova debuted as a co-director in Viktyuk's take on David Pawnell's The Master's Lessons staged at Vakhtangov's. Maksakova's notable film works of the were The Old Russian Vaudevilles' Evening (1979) where she played five women, Igor Talankin's drama Father Sergius (after Leo Tolstoy's short story, Makovkina) and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, the Ian Frid's musical film after Johann Strauss Strauss
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
' classic where she starred opposite brothers Yuri and Vitaly Solomin
Vitaly Solomin
Vitaly Mefodievich Solomin was a Soviet and Russian actor, director and screenwriter. He was the younger brother of Yury Solomin....
.
Critics lauded her works in Stanislav Govorukhin
Stanislav Govorukhin
Stanislav Sergeyevich Govorukhin has been one of the most popular Soviet and Russian film directors since the 1960s...
's Ten Little Negroes
Desyat Negrityat
Desyat Negrityat is a 1987 Soviet film adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None . It was directed by Stanislav Govorukhin, who also penned the script...
(1987, as Miss Brent) , Pyotr Todorovsky
Pyotr Todorovsky
Pyotr Yefimovich Todorovsky is a Soviet Russian film director, screenwriter and film score composer.His film Wartime Romance was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival, where Inna Churikova won the...
's By the Main Street with an Orchestra (1986, as Alla Maksimovna) and Pyotr Fomenko's melodrama Old Car Ridings (Zoya Pavlovna). The latter marked the beginning of successful collaboration the climax of which was the Alexander Ostrovsky's Guilty Without Fault production that has earned Maksakova The USSR State Prize
USSR State Prize
The USSR State Prize was the Soviet Union's state honour. It was established on September 9, 1966. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the prize was followed up by the State Prize of the Russian Federation....
(1995) and the Stanislavsky Prize (1996). Two more renown Fomenko productions, Queen of Spades (1998) and The Resurrection (1999, after Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
's Le Miracle de saint Antoine) were starring Maksakova. In 2000s she started to teach at the Schukin's Theater College and her appearances on stage and on screen became rarer.
Filmography
- There Was an Old CoupleThere Was an Old CoupleThere Was an Old Couple is a 1965 Soviet drama film directed by Grigori Chukhrai. It was entered into the 1965 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Ivan Marin - The Old Man, Gusakov* Vera Kuznetsova - The Old Woman, Gusakova* Lyudmila Maksakova - Nina...
(Nina, 1964) - Tatyana's Day (Tatyana Ogneva, 1967)
- A Road to 'Saturn (Sophia Krauze, 1967)
- The End of 'Saturn (Sophia Krauze, 1968)
- Not Guilty (Nadya, 1969)
- Faust (Margarita, 1969)
- A Train into Tomorrow (Lydia Konoplyova, 1970)
- Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man, TV series (Mamayeva, 1971)
- Princess Turandot (Adelma, 1971)
- Witness' Disappearance (Nastya, 1971)
- The Battle After the Victory (Sophia Krauze, 1972)
- The Bad Good Man (Nadezhda Fyodorovna, 1973)
- The Touch (Tamara Fabritsius, 1973)
- Personal Matters Reception Day (Galina, 1974)
- Autumn (Margo, 1974)
- The Clara Gazul Theater (Clara Gazul, 1974)
- The 'Izotop' Cafe (Skurlatova, 1976)
- Summer in Nohant-Vic (George Sand, 1976)
- Father Sergius (Makovkina, 1978)
- The Old Russian Vaudevilles Evening (Kletkina, 1978)
- Die Fledermaus (Rosalinde, 1979)
- The Glembais (Charlotte, 1979)
- Idiot, TV (Nastasya Filippovna, 1979)
- Richard III (Lady Anna, 1982)
- Prokhindiada or Running on the Spot (rector Maria Nikitichna, 1983)
- By the Main Street with an Orchestra (Alla Maksimovna, 1986)
- Ten Little NegroesDesyat NegrityatDesyat Negrityat is a 1987 Soviet film adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None . It was directed by Stanislav Govorukhin, who also penned the script...
(1987) - Mu-Mu (The Lady, 1989)
- An Ideal Couple, TV Series (Nadezda Potapova, 1989)
- Anna Karenina (Lydia Ivanovna, 2009)