Ippolit Altani

Born May 15 (27), 1846, in the southern Ukraine; died Feb. 17, 1919, in Moscow. Russian conductor and choirmaster. Graduated in 1866 from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied the violin with G. Veniavskii and composition with N. I. Zaremba and A. G. Rubinshtein. Conductor and choirmaster at the Russian opera in Kiev from 1867 to 1882.

Al’tani’s activity contributed to the development of the art of stage music in the Ukraine. From 1882 to 1906 he was the chief conductor at the Bol’shoi Theater in Moscow. He was the first to stage in Moscow the Russian operas The Oprichnik (1874), Mazepa (1884), The Queen of Spades (1891), and lolanta (1893) by Tchaikovsky; The Snow Maiden (1893) and The Maid of Pskov (1901) by Rimsky-Korsakov; Boris Godunov (1888) by Mussorgsky; and others. He paid great attention to the technical perfection of the performance, to the purity of structure, and to the evenness of the sound of the orchestra. Al’tani was also a symphony conductor. He taught at the music school of the Kiev division of the Russian Musical Society.