Galina Vishnevskaya

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The Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (Гали́на Па́вловна Вишне́вская) (born 25 October 1926) is well-known opera singer and recitalist.

Vishnevskaya was born in Leningrad. The soprano made her professional stage debut in 1944 singing operetta. After a year studying with Vera Nikolayeva, she won a competition held by Bolshoi (with Rachmaninov's song "O, Do Not Grieve" and Verdi's "O patria mia" from "Aïda") in 1952. In the next year, she became a member of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

In 1960 (May 9th), she made her first appearance in Sarajevo at National Theatre as Aïda. In 1961, Vishnevskaya made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aïda; the following year she made her debut at the Royal Opera House with the same role. For her La Scala debut in 1964, she sang Liù in Turandot, opposite Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli.

In addition to the roles in the Russian operatic repertoire, Vishnevskaya has also sung Violetta, Tosca, Cio-cio-san, Leonore (Fidelio), and even Cherubino.

Vishnevskaya has been married to the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich since 1955; they performed together regularly (he on piano or on the podium). Both of them had been friends with Shostakovich, and they two made an electrifying recording of his opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" for EMI, after they left the Soviet Union and Shostakovich's death.

In 1974, they left the Soviet Union and eventually settled in the United States and Paris. In 1982, the soprano bade farewell to the opera stage, in Paris, as Tatyana in Eugene Onegin. In 1987, she stage directed Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar’s Bride in Washington, D.C. In 1984, Vishnevskaya published a memoir, Galina: A Russian Story (ISBN 0-15-134250-4), and in 2002, she opened her own opera theater in Moscow: The Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center.

The diva made many recordings, including Eugene Onegin (1956 and 1970), Songs and Dances of Death (1961 and 1977), War Requiem (with Sir Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, 1963), The Poet's Echo (1968), Boris Godounov (1970 and 1987), Tosca (1976), Pique-dame (with Regina Resnik, 1976), Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1978), Yolanta (with Nicolai Gedda, 1984), and War and Peace (1986).