100Singers's video: 100 Singers - MAXIM MIKHAILOV

Maxim Mikhailov, Bass (1893-1971) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: SADKO Song of the Varangian guest: "O skaly groznye" ("O you menacing rocks") Conducted by Samuil Samosud (1947) My personal opinion: The richness of great Russian respectively Ukrainian basses was apparently inexhaustible. We need only think of all the singers who performed Glinka's Ivan Susanin and Farlaf or Mussorgsky's Boris, Pimen and Varlaam. The list goes from the forefather of all Russian basses, Osip Petrov (1806-1878), over Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) and Mark Reizen (1895-1992), Alexander Pirogov (1899-1964), Boris Gmyrya (1903-1969) and Ivan Petrov (1920-2003) to Yevgeny Nesterenko (*1938). Maxim Mikhailov, who had one of the most opulent voices, was often ignored. A reason may be his political position: He was a favorite of dictator Stalin, who frequently asked for the bass to "sing and dance with him at night in the Moscow Kremlin" (Wikipedia). Every afficionado, who is familiar with Glinka's opera RUSLAN AND LYUDMILA (1842), certainly knows the classic 1938 recording with Mark Reizen as Ruslan, soprano Valeria Barsova (1892-1967) as Lyudmila and Mikhailov, who sings Prince Svetozar and lends his deep basso profondo voice also to the spooky appearance of a huge severed head. The scene, in which the knight Ruslan meets the apparition, became legendary: At the sight of dead warriors on the battlefield, Ruslan ponders about the transience of life (this aria is crowned by a high g). Maxim Mikhailov as the head answers with an unearthly voice that seems to come straight out of a crypt: It's an organ-like tone you will not forget so soon ... Maxim Dormidontovich Mikhailov (not to be confused with his grandson Maksim Mikhailov, who died in November 2018) was a physical phenomenon with enormous depth and volume. After hard work as a docker, he first sang in various church choirs, but was accepted only with great difficulty at the conservatory of Kazan. In 1924 at the age of 31, he went to Moscow for further voice training. Five years later he undertook several concert tours and attracted the attention of the Soviet radio, which in turn leds to an engagement at the Bolshoi Theater. By then he was already age 39. He debuted there as the second Zaretzky in Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN. But another two years passed until he achieved his first major successes at the Bolshoi as Prince Yuri in Rimsky-Korsakov's LEGEND OF THE INVISIBLE CITY OF KITEZH and as the Polovtsian Khan Konchak in Borodin's PRINCE IGOR, a role he recorded in 1941 under the baton of legendary conductor Alexander Melik-Pashayev (who made a second version ten years later with Mark Reizen, Mikhailov's great rival). There can be no doubt, that the highlight of Mikhailov's career at the Bolshoi (which lasted until 1957) was his interpretation of Ivan Susanin in Glinka's A LIFE FOR THE TSAR, a role he performed more than 400 times. The peasant Ivan, who gives his life to save the Romanov Tsar, was Mikhailov's favorite role, perhaps because he was also born into a peasant family. The 1947 recording under Melik-Pashaev is (despite the inadequate sound quality) probably unequaled, although Boris Christoff sang the role ten years later under Igor Markevitch for HMV. In direct comparison with Christoff's supple sonority, Mikhailov's voice had the texture of a rugged rock. Sometimes his singing was a bit stiff, but always sincere and linear without any antics and masquerades. Maxim Mikhailov belonged to the rare breed of bassi profondi, who were able (just like Reizen) to lift up their voices into the low baritone region. One of his most impressing portrayals was that of the old monk Pimen in Golovanov's 1948 recording of BORIS GODUNOV, a role he also played in the atmospheric movie by Vera Stoeva (1954). There was a lububrious quality in Mikhailov's voice, that predestined him for broken characters, soulful Russian folk songs and wistful romances. But he also proved humor: Amusing are the duets, in which his raven-black bass contrasts in a comical way with the bright tenor of Ivan Kozlovsky (1900-1993). Both singers were artful enough, to make one laugh without being laughable. It belongs to the absurdities of the opera business, that Maxim Mikhailov - highly acclaimed and honored in Russia - escaped the attention of most Western music authors; a situation that has not changed almost fifty years after his passing and despite the fall of the iron curtain ...