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Galina Vishnevskaya

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Vocalist

The Resume

    (October 25, 1926-December 11, 2012)
    Born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
    Soprano opera singer
    Known as the 'Russian Maria Callas'
    Recorded Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin' (1956, 1970), Mussorgsky's 'Songs and Dances of Death' (1961, 1976), Britten's 'War Requiem' (with Sir Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, conducted by the composer; 1963), 'The Poet's Echo' (1968), Mussorgsky's 'Boris Godunov' (1970, 1987), Puccini's 'Tosca' (1976), Tchaikovsky's 'The Queen of Spades' (with Regina Resnik, 1976), 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' (1978), Tchaikovsky's 'Iolanta' (with Nicolai Gedda, 1984), and Prokofiev's 'War and Peace' (1986)
    Exiled from the Soviet Union (1974-1990)
    Wrote 'Galina: A Russian Story' (1984)
    Appeared in 'Katerina Izmailova' (1966), Yelena Gremina's 'Behind the Mirror' (1994), and Alexander Sokurov's movie 'Alexandra' (2007)
    Opened her own opera theater in Moscow (2002)
    Died in Moscow

Why she might be annoying:

    She was married three times.
    Her marriage to her first husband lasted only a year. (1944)
    Her second husband was 22 years her senior.
    Travel restrictions imposed on her by Soviet authorities meant that the West never got the chance to hear her at her best.
    She became a critic of modern opera productions, even refusing to set foot in the Bolshoi after watching a production of 'Eugene Onegin'.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She was married to her third husband Mstislav Rostropovich for 52 years until his death.
    Her alcoholic father tried to kill her mother with an axe, leaving her under the care of her grandmother.
    She survived the siege of Leningrad during World War II.
    She nearly died a post-partum infection after giving birth to a son from her second marriage.
    The same son died at 10 weeks old.
    She was forced to sing for Politburo members during their drunken parties.
    She and her husband were blacklisted for sheltering Alexander Solzhenitsyn in their dacha.

Credit: Big Lenny


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 8 Votes: 12.50% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 21 Votes: 61.90% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 62 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 22 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 32 Votes: 50.0% Annoying