Elizaveta Ivanovna Chavdar

Born Feb. 23, 1925, in Odessa. Soviet Ukrainian coloratura soprano and teacher. People’s Artist of the USSR (1952). Member of the CPSU since 1953.

Chavdar graduated from the Odessa Conservatory in 1948 and in the same year became a soloist at the Ukrainian Theater of Opera and Ballet. In 1968 she joined the teaching staff of the Kiev Conservatory; she has been a professor there since 1979.

Chavdar’s singing is melodious, and her articulation has great purity and expressiveness. Her voice is strong and beautiful in timbre. She is a virtuoso with vivid individuality and refined taste.

Among Chavdar’s best roles are Antonida in Glinka’s Ivan Susanin, Liudmila in Glinka’s Ruslan and Liudmila, Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, Lakmé in Delibes’s Lakmé, Iolan in G. Maiboroda’s Milana, Oksana in Maiboroda’s Taras Shevchenko, and Iarina in Maiboroda’s Arsenal. She was the first Ukrainian singer to perform R. M. Gliére’s Concerto for Voice and Orchestra.

Chavdar is a laureate of the international competitions in Budapest (1949, second prize) and Berlin (1951, first prize). She has toured in the Soviet Union and abroad. Chavdar has been awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.