28 October 2014, Tuesday

Melodiya presents a jubilee release of one of the most distinguished singers of modern times Elena Obraztsova.
She has sung at the world's best opera and concert houses. Her operatic heroines are known and loved by millions of listeners on different continents. She has worked with the greatest opera directors, conductors and soloists. However, the singer still considers the Bolshoi Theatre her principal operatic home where she debuted as Marina Mniszech in Boris Godunov more than fifty years ago.
That was the time of the Bolshoi's golden cohort when Obraztsova's voice and dramatic gift shone among the other outstanding representatives of Soviet music art. That was an era of the Bolshoi's first international triumphs when the young singer, along with the other new soloists of the troupe, was receiving rousing welcomes during the tours of Italy and the United States. That was an era when the perennial traditions existed in harmony with the spirit of newness introduced by the younger artists and the experience shared with foreign peers.
The release features fragments of Russian and foreign operas which make up just a portion of Elena Obraztsova's extensive repertoire numbering over eighty parts. Still, they largely convey the main features of her performing individuality, her mastery of musical dramatic transformation making us recognize the singer's voice on recordings of different years. The music by Donizetti, Verdi, Saint-Saens, Bizet, Massenet, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky is performed to the accompaniment of the USSR Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by the outstanding maestros Boris Khaikin, Odyssey Dimitriadi, Algis ЕЅiЕ«raitis and Mark Ermler.
https://soundcloud.com/firmamelodia/01-tchaikovsky-the-maid-of