Anastasia Dmitrievna Vyaltseva (; 1871–1913) was a Russian mezzo-soprano, specializing in Gypsy art songs.Soviet Encyclopaedia of Music Enjoying the cult following and supported by the popular press (which called her The Incomparable, Nesravnennaya), she toured regularly and was engaged in numerous operettas (Saffi in The Gypsy Baron by Johann Strauss, Perichole in La Perichole and Helene in Offenbach's La belle Helene), as well as operas, appearing in the Mariyinsky Theatre, as Carmen (Carmen by Georges Bizet), Amneris (Aida by Giuseppe Verdi, Dalila (Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns). The biggest star of the Russian popular music scene of the 1900s, Vyaltseva had more than 300 songs to her repertoire, one of the best loved being "I Fall In and Out of Love at Will".
Biography Early years Anastasia Vyaltseva was born on 1 March 1871, in Altukhovo, a sloboda in the Sevsky Uyezd of the Oryol Governorate, now the Navlinsky District of Bryansk Oblast.Nestyev, I.V. Stars of Russian Popular Music. Moscow. Sovertsky Kompozitor. 1970. P. 49. Her mother Maria Tikhonovna was a local peasant woman. Her father Dmitry Vyaltsev, born in Svyazye village (in Trubchevsk, according to other sources), was a forester servant supervising some of the estates of a local landowner. Rumour had it she was an illegitimate child of the estate's manager, named Alexey. The latter arranged Maria's marriage to Dmitry Vyaltsev, a forester, who agreed to give her children his surname and paternal (middle) name.
After Dmitry's death (he was killed by a falling tree) Maria Tikhonovna with Nastya and two sons, Yakov and Ananiy, settled in her elderly parents' small wooden hut at the outskirts of Altukhovo. Several years later she took her three children to Kiev where she worked as laundress. In Kiev, eight-year-old Anastasia joined a dressmaker's saloon. The clientele, mostly choirgirls from the Kiev theatres, soon discovered the girl had a voice.
Career At the age of fourteen Vyaltseva visited the Kiev ballet-master Lenchevsky and in 1887 joined his ballet troupe.Saint Petersburg Theatre museum. Anastasia Vyaltseva Collection A year later she approached Yosif Setov, a respected operetta entrepreneur whose troupe was staying in Kiev for a winter season. Impressed by her singing, he invited the youngster to join in as a dancer, since there were no vacancies in the vocal section at the time. Dancing was not Vyaltseva's strong point though, and, the quality of her voice notwithstanding, the public thought little before pelting at her rotten tomatoes. Setov did everything he could to encourage the girl, and later she remembered him with gratitude, calling him her "artistic godfather."
As the Setov troupe disbanded, Vyaltseva joined the small Larionova-Larina operetta collective as a choirgirl.Peterburgskaya Gazeta, February 5, 1913 In 1890, now a member of the Zdanovich-Boreyko group, she toured the Russian province, performing miniature solo parts for the first time. In 1892 the singer joined the Vilno-based Nezlobin troupe, then in 1893 moved to the Moscow Aquarium theatre. While there, she met the established operetta artist Serafima Velskaya (1846-1933)Some sources maintain they met earlier, in a Kiev hotel who told the girl she needed serious musical education. For that Vyaltseva had neither time nor money. She moved to Saint Petersburg and, after a short stint with the local Aquarium theatre joined the S.A.Palm's Maly Theatre, again as a choirgirl.Novoye Vremya. No. 13256, 1913. February 5 (18), p. 6.
1893 was the year when Gypsy art songs became highly popular in the Russian capital. In Nikolai Kulikov's musical Gypsy Songs in Characters, produced by Palm, Vyaltseva received a small part of Katya. Her rendition of "I Fall in and out of Love at Will" () brought the young singer her first success and became her signature tune for years to come. After that Vyaltseva received the role of Boulotta in Jacques Offenbach's Barbe-bleue but in 1897 left the Palm Theatre, which by now started to lose its position as the leading force of the Saint Petersburg operetta.
In the mid-1890s Vyaltseva became a protégée of Nikolai Kholeva, an affluent Saint Petersburg barrister, whose financial support enabled her first to take lessons from Stanislav Sonka, the chairman of the Saint Petersburg's Vocal Society, then visit Italy to study with professor Marti. Kholeva took part in the formation of the singer's repertoire, now a combination of romances and Russian folk songs, and used his influence to ensure the press would respond favourably to her first solo concerts. Soon Vyaltseva herself learned how to deal with journalists and became a press darling. Still the capital knew Vyaltseva as a former choirgirl, so Kholeva moved her to Moscow, hoping for a breakthrough.
In 1897, after several saloon performances Vyaltseva gave her first solo concert in the Moscow Hermitage theatre which proved to be a triumph. Yakov Shchukin, the Moscow entrepreneur and the New Hermitage theatre director first offered her a monthly wage of 750 rubles, then after one season started to pay 133 for each performance. She stayed with the Hermitage up until 1909 and afterwards continued to perform in Shchukin's benefices, giving him credit for her rise to fame.
Anastasia Vyaltseva's first national tour as a solo artist was organized and promoted by L.L.Palmsky. It started on 24 January 1902 in Tver, and was followed by concerts in Tambov and Voronezh. Her most memorable performance proved to be the one in Kharkov on March the 4th. "A serious University city, a high-brow public… But Vyaltseva arrived, sang her powerful song of overpowering love, beamed out this inimitable smile of hers and the same crowd that yesterday discussed Ibsen, was now madly calling out for Troyka and Caressed by Magic... Her connection with Kharkov remained: that was the city where she was adored," wrote the theatre critic Y. Lvov. "As a performer of Gypsy romances M-lle Vyaltseva has no equal…The artist renders these songs masterfully and expressively, easily involving audiences into her art," wrote Odessky Listok several days later. Then, despite the sceptics' predictions to the contrary, she triumphed in Tiflis, the Georgian city with its old theatre and opera traditions. After the tour ended in Pavlovsk, the press started to call her the Incomparable (Nesravnennaya), using the epithet as if it was her stage name.
In the Far East In 1904, soon after breaking up with Nikolai Kholeva, Vyaltseva became romantically linked with Vasily Biskupsky, a Russian National Guard officer. As the Russo-Japanese War had broken out, he was sent to the Far-Eastern front and was severely injured. In July, Vyaltseva cancelled all concerts and went to the Far Eastern location of the Russian army in a medical convoy she financed herself. There she gave several charity concerts in support of the families of fallen soldiers and raised tens of thousands of rubles for improving the conditions Russian army officers and soldiers were living in. Then, as a sister of mercy, she joined the hospital where Biskupsky was recuperating.
In November 1904, Vyaltseva returned to Saint Petersburg. Profoundly shaken by her experience, she still opted against changing her repertoire. "The people are depressed anyway and if they come to hear Vyaltseva, it is obviously with the view to leave all their troubles behind at least for a while," she explained in an interview. In the spring of 1905 Vyaltseva embarked upon her second trip to Manchuria. After the war Biskupsky secretly married Vyaltseva and, when this became known, was forced to retire: a National Guard marrying a peasant daughter was considered a violation of the unwritten code of conduct. Vyaltseva continued to give charity concerts in support of the Russian Army and the Red Cross. In 1911 she financed the raising of the monument to the former 148th Infantry Caspian regiment in Novy Petergof.
Vyaltseva in opera
Vyaltseva, who always dreamed of becoming an opera singer, made her debut as such in July 1902 as the lead in Georges Bizet's Carmen at the Great Hall of the Saint Petersburg conservatory. Critics praised the singer's technical progress but were baffled by 'extraordinary nervousness' that marred her performance.Teatr i Iskusstvo (Theatre & Arts), Saint Petersburg, No.18. 1902, p. 363 In October 1903 the singer signed an "opera contract" with the private Moscow Solodovnikov Theatre.Russkoye Slovo, 1903. November 11 In 1904 the similar contract made sure the Bouffe Theatre would produce twelve operas especially for her.
Vyaltseva's taking up the male part, that of the Demon, in Anton Rubinstein's opera of the same name, produced uproarTeatr i Iskusstvo, No.46. 1903, p. 871Russkoye Slovo, 1903. November 17 (4) and Solodovnikov, under pressure, cancelled the show.Russkoye Slovo, 1903, December 8 (Nov. 26.) This, in its turn outraged Vyaltseva's fans, among them satirist Vlas Doroshevich who denounced this 'victory' as a 'shame'. In January 1904 Vyaltseva performed as the Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, at Solodovnikov's, to almost unanimous negative critical response.Russkoye Slovo, 1904, January 16 Her next one here, Delilah in Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns, received better reviews, yet some critics remained unconvinced with the distinctive "romance intonation" that seemed to creep into the singer's arias from her popular repertoire.Novosti Dnya, 1904, February 15 (2)
On 11 and 14 June 1904 Vyaltseva appeared as Dalila in the Saint Petersburg's Bouffe Theatre and, despite disappointing performance, was supported by the popular press.Teatr i Iskusstvo, No.25, 1904, p. 475. The directors were on her side too: it looked like any opera performance of Vyaltseva's was now destined to be a hit, regardless of quality. Later in 1904 Vyaltseva brought her Delilah to Kharkov and was praised there for bringing "more subtlety" to the part. Some critics remained unconvinced. "She has to finally choose between her 'gypsiness' and serious music. Vyaltseva's ardent passions, deep sighs, shining smiles and sparkling glances on the one hand and opera on the other, just do not mix," Yuzhny Krai opined.
In 1905 Vyaltseva sang Lyubasha in the Tsar's Bride by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Mignon by Ambroise Thomas at Saint Petersburg's Olympia concert hall, again to mixed reviews.Peterburgskaya Gazeta. 1905, July 10 Her performance as Mignon was ostensibly overwrought and critics wondered why she chose to impart such passions to this rather lackluster character.
Vyaltseva's dramatic performance as Amneris in Aida by Giuseppe Verdi in May 1906 marked the finest hour of her opera career.Teatr i Iskusstvo, No.21, 1906, p.326; No.22, 1906, p.338. But then Peterburgskaya Gazeta started to publish humorous sketches, ridiculing the singer's artistic strife. Later in Moscow, in the middle of Samson and Delilah the public started to call for "Troyka", one of her better known romances. This proved to be the last straw for Vyaltseva; she quit opera and left her main ambition, to sing Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Evgeny Onegin, unfulfilled. Later critics were divided as for the reasons for Vyaltseva's failure in the opera. Most of them agreed that despite occasional brilliance (certainly, as Carmen), on the whole her opera performances lacked this magical quality that made her Russian romance repertoire so special.
Russian "Queen of Gramophone"