The Remarkable Journey of Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich

Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich

On a December night in 1961 in the Lenin Hospital on Vasilevsky Island, Anna Akhmatova, who miraculously survived her third heart attack, writes: A woman’s voice rushes like the wind, It seems black, wet, nightly, And whatever it touches on the fly, Everything becomes immediately different …. “Listening to Singing” will be dedicated to Galina Vishnevskaya.

In her performance, Anna Andreevna heard on the radio “Brazilian Bakhiana No. 5” by Villa-Lobos. Pebble-artist, from birth with a voice set by nature, thanks to which she not only survived, but also became “GalinPalna – you are our queen.” The last in a joking tone was allowed to speak only to the elect.

An orphan with living parents, given to her one and a half month old grandmother, Galya Ivanova could not understand why they did this. She was very sensitive to this. All the time I wanted to prove to them that I would grow up and become some kind of unusual person. She imagined how she would shine, and how her mother would sob and repent that she had abandoned her daughter.

From the age of two, she sang “Black Eyes”, and later – the entire repertoire of Claudia Shulzhenko. I remembered what I heard on the radio or in the movies. She performed in front of her grandmother’s girlfriends, who gathered on the day they received their pension in their room. Her voice carried through the yard. “Well, Galka the artist sings,” the neighbors smiled.

From childhood, the future opera diva followed the two commandments of her grandmother: do not lie and do not steal. Over the years, her own was added – do not betray. Yourself first. As a child, she ran away from reality into rainbow dreams. Swollen from hunger, she sat alone, wrapped in blankets, in an empty apartment and dreamed: here she is walking through the park in a beautiful dress with a crinoline, like Milica Korjus in the American film The Great Waltz, a handsome duke appears, falls in love, marries her … Well and of course she sings like Korjus in the movie.

In the spring of 1942, the girl was miraculously found by three women who went from apartment to apartment in search of those who survived. And they were taken to the headquarters of the MPVO. 15-year-old Galya, along with adults, raked rubble in the city, repaired sewers. And she always put on three pairs of canvas mittens, even at such moments not forgetting that she would become an artist. And the actress’s hands must be perfect.

In the summer of 1943, Pyotr Dolgolenko, a lieutenant from a submarine, died. First love. They met in the winter, after the war they wanted to get married. When Peter kissed Galya for the first time, she literally lost consciousness for a few seconds from happiness in the truest sense of the word. It happened on the street. I woke up sitting on a bench, saw his face bent over it, and around him the stars were spinning in the sky.

– The first time after the death of Petya, I did not know what to do – the earth left from under my feet, – I recalled. – Neither rehearsals in the jazz orchestra, nor concerts could save me from melancholy and hopelessness.

She asked the head of the MPVO to let her go to study. He turned out to be kind, took pity on the girl, demobilized before the end of the war.

Sailor’s slap

Education didn’t work out. After three months of classes at the Rimsky-Korsakov Music School, Galina discovered with horror that the top notes had disappeared. Years later, I realized: the teacher “broke” natural data.

She left the music school and in the summer of 1944 she married a young sailor Georgy Vishnevsky. And a week later it became clear that in vain. The husband did not understand why his wife wants to study, sing and perform on stage.

On September 1 of the same year, a scandal erupted at home. Upon learning that his wife nevertheless went to work at the Operetta Theater, the husband did not find anything better than to give a slap in the face. It is unlikely that the nature of the future prima donna of the Bolshoi Theater allowed her not to answer. It is possible that she answered – although history is silent about this. Be that as it may, the surname remained in memory of such a short marriage.

The theater gave Galina a man, thanks to whom she found a home and family.

Mark Rubin was 22 years older. They were united by a common cause – they were together 24 hours a day. And after some time, 19-year-old Vishnevskaya realized that she was pregnant.

The born baby was named Ilya in honor of Mark’s father. He was destined to live only two and a half months. In order not to go crazy from grief, the singer, not yet recovering from the most difficult birth and its consequences, went on tour with the theater. Then she prepared a program of pop songs and began to give solo concerts organized by her husband.

It was a heavy piece of bread. The tour lasted two months. They moved from one provincial town to another. There are practically no conditions. But freedom and independence. Perhaps Vishnevskaya would have said goodbye to her dream of singing in the opera, if not for the meeting with a unique woman – Vera Nikolaevna Garina.

Vera Nikolaevna was 80 at the time. She studied singing back in the 19th century with the famous Polina de Lucca in Vienna. She sang mainly abroad, but after marriage she gradually left her career.

Six months after the start of classes, Vera Nikolaevna returned the full range to Galya – two and a half octaves. Life again began to play with bright colors. Alas, not for long.

Painful injections

When the doctor said “an open form of tuberculosis,” Vishnevskaya at first did not understand that it was about her. The operation meant the possible loss of his voice, and even if he remained, singing could be forgotten. Then why live? As she was in a hospital gown, Galina ran away from the hospital. Almost before the start of the operation.

In the summer of 1951, she was rapidly moving towards death. The body was torn due to the blockade hunger, performances in unheated rooms, difficult childbirth and the death of a child. I wanted only one thing – peace. Eternal rest.

But one day, Vishnevskaya’s eyes accidentally fell on a volume of Turgenev. She opened a page at random and after five minutes she “ran” in her thoughts through the park of the “Noble Nest”, to the gazebo, where, hiding from thunder, rain and sparkling lightning, He was waiting for her.

For the first time in his illness, he didn’t want to die.

With difficulty she drank melted lard, honey with butter, raw eggs. She endured painful injections of crude streptomycin, for which her husband gave crazy money to a speculator from Moscow – 30 rubles per gram. It was her concert bet. But Galina could not work, she had to sell things.

Mark miraculously managed to get a ticket to a tuberculosis sanatorium, and Galina went there for two months. Doctors forbade singing, but she did not listen to them. And, as the Aesculapius said, a miracle happened. Koch’s sticks disappeared, the cavity was tightened. In two months I added 16 kg and felt full of strength.

Thanks Bonnie

In May 1952, at the House of Actors, Vishnevskaya saw a poster: “The Bolshoi Theater of the USSR announces a competition for a trainee group.” I thought, “What am I actually missing?”

The aria “Bank of the Nile” made a splash. She was invited to the second round in Moscow. Just in case, she asked Vera Nikolaevna what other arias to sing. You never know, they suddenly ask.

“After Aida, they won’t ask for anything,” the teacher answered and turned out to be right.

Singing in the opera was a dream, in which by that time Galina had almost ceased to believe. Indeed, due to the war and constant poverty, she was unable to receive a classical musical education …

The stage of the Bolshoi obeyed Vishnevskaya immediately. However, the personnel department offered to fill out a dangerous 20-page questionnaire. Her father had the 58th “counter-revolutionary” article, but at her own peril and risk, Galina wrote – “missing.” Didn’t get to the bottom.

Director Boris Pokrovsky called her “a trump card in the deck of the Bolshoi Theatre”, and very soon Galina became his prima, despite the fact that there were 15 sopranos in her role. Vishnevskaya was gifted, pretty, temperamental and hardworking. And for a place on the poster she knew how to fight better than many.

She was always surprised when she was asked how to make a career.

– What do you mean how? Go ahead, she said.

Imagine her surprise and indignation when, after being released from the camp, her father himself went to the personnel department of the theater and stated that her daughter had written a lie in the questionnaire, hiding his criminal record. So Pavel Andreevich tried to punish the heiress for refusing to take him for maintenance.

But he miscalculated. After Stalin’s death, Article 58 ceased to be a black mark. Then the father sued his daughter, deciding at least in this way to get money from her. The court did not satisfy his claims. But Galina paid a certain amount to her parent until the end of his days. Despite numerous betrayals on his part.

Then she was already the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi and the wife of the young musician Mstislav Rostropovich. We met in 1955 at a reception at the Metropol restaurant. And the romance began in Prague, where both participated in the Prague Spring festival. By the way, when they started talking about her candidacy in the Ministry of Culture, someone spoke out against it. The head of one of the departments by the name of Boni, dreamily rolling his eyes, objected:

– I don’t know if Vishnevskaya will pull on the “Spring”, but in the spring it pulls on Vishnevskaya!

After Galina and Mstislav signed, the official received from the singer a bottle of “Vishnevka” with a card: “If it weren’t for Boni, they wouldn’t get married.”

Damaged fur coat

Not everyone in the Bolshoi loved her. First of all – for a cool temper. When she entered the theater, she came to see how Maria Maksakova was rehearsing Carmen. Suddenly, the famous singer turned to her:

– You know, you are obstinate. I wouldn’t want to be on the same team with you.

Galina froze for a second from such impudence – they didn’t even know each other – but, having died, she immediately answered:

– You, Maria Petrovna, this does not threaten you at all, you are retiring …

And ten years later, she could easily say in the face of an artist who came to the theater without stockings:

What are you doing with bare legs? No money left? I can give.

In 1956, her husband brought Galina a fur coat from a tour. Returning one day from a rehearsal, I saw that someone had specially doused my back with red varnish. The acetone would dissolve the varnish and leave a terrible stain. I had to clean it by hand.

She did not react to small “bites”, but she answered sensitive dirty tricks using all her connections. Over the years, “GalinPalna – you are our queen” has gained influential friends and admirers. And not only in Moscow. And when, at the age of 47, I had to start all over again: they were sent on a creative business trip with my husband, and then they were deprived of citizenship, Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, Vladimir Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern came to the rescue … They were also friends with Minister of the Interior Shchelokov.

Many years will pass, and the couple will return to Russia. Once, sitting with my husband at a table not far from them, I heard: “Pinocchio! What’s wrong with your right hand?” – “Sorry, Toad.” And the empty glasses of those sitting at the table were instantly filled. It seemed to me then that Galka the artist often defeats “Galin Palna, our queen.”