Petr Belinnik

Born Oct. 1 (14), 1906, in Akhtyrka, Kharkov Province. Soviet-Ukrainian singer (lyric tenor); People’s Artist of the USSR (1954).

From 1933 to 1936, Belinnik studied at the Kharkov Conservatory (R. S. Vain’s singing class). Between 1936 and 1940 he was a soloist at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR (Moscow); from 1941 to 1942 he was a soloist for the Kharkov Theater and beginning in 1942, a soloist at the Kiev Theater of Opera and Ballet. His roles include Lenskii (in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin), the idiot (in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov), Toropka (in Verstovskii’s Askold’s Grave), Alfredo (in Verdi’s La Traviata), Petro (in Lysenko’s Natalka-Poltavka), and Anatole (in Prokofiev’s War and Peace). He is also well known as a singer of Ukrainian and Russian folk songs. Belinnik was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.