Kseniia Derzhinskaia

Born Jan. 25 (Feb. 6), 1889, in Kiev; died June 9, 1951, in Moscow. Russian dramatic soprano. People’s Artist of the USSR (1937).

Derzhinskaia studied voice in St. Petersburg with E. I. Terian-Korganova. She was a soloist at the Sergii People’s House in Moscow in 1913-14 and at the Bolshoi Theater from 1915 to 1948. From 1947 to 1951 she was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

An outstanding representative of the Russian vocal school, Derzhinskaia had an excellent musical background and a powerful clear voice with a lovely timbre. Her roles included Iaroslavna in Borodin’s Prince Igor, Natasha in Dargomyzhskii’s The Mermaid, Liza and Nastas’ia in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and The Sorceress, the title roles in Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s Turandot and Tosca, and Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Die Walküre. In 1926 she performed one of her best roles in Paris, that of Fevroniia in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh. A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR in 1943, she was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.