Galina Vishnevskaia

Born Oct. 25, 1926, in Leningrad. Soviet Russian soprano. People’s Artist of the USSR (1966).

Vishnevskaia studied singing with V. N. Garina in Lenin-grad. In 1944 she began performing with the Leningrad Oblast Operetta Theater and then worked with the Leningrad Philharmonic. In 1952 she became a soloist at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR in Moscow. Vishnevskaia is a performer possessing subtle musical and stage talent. Her performance is distinguished by fullness of sound and impeccable purity of intonation. Her roles include Tat’iana and Liza in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene One gin and The Queen of Spades, Kupava in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden, Aida and Violetta in Verdi’s Aida and La Traviata, Cho-Cho-San in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Natasha Rostova in Prokofiev’s War and Peace, and Katherine in Shebalin’s The Taming of the Shrew (first performer, 1957). As a concert singer, she is outstanding for her moving interpretations of art songs by M. P. Mussorgsky, P. I. Tchaikovsky, and D. D. Shostakovich. In 1966 she appeared in the film Katerina Izmailova. Vishnevskaia, who has toured many countries of the world, has been awarded the Order of Lenin.