EVGENIYA MRAVINA tragic Opera Soprano CDV photograph in costume

Description

Vezenberg of St. Petersburg carte de visite photograph of the tragic coloratura soprano in costume.
Evgeniya Mravina
(Evgenia Konstantinovna Mravinskaya) (1864-1914) Russian coloratura soprano
The daughter of a famous Russian major general from a noble family who was convicted of helping revolutionaries attempt to assassinate the Tsar. She began singing to her family at three, joined the choir of the St. Catherine Gymnasium. From 1878-1879 she lived in Bulgaria with her parents and sung in several concerts that year.  At seventeen started serious vocal studies with baritone Ippolit Pryanishnikov who also taught Nikolai Figner and Maria Slavina. From 1878-1879 she lived in Bulgaria with her parents and gave several concerts that year.  Pryanishkov spent the early part of his career in Italy and was well connected sending her to study with three of the most important vocal pedagogues of their time, Desiree Artot in Berlin and Mathilde Marchesi and St. Yves Bax in Paris. Her stage debut was in Vittorio Veneto, Italy in a small theatre on August 7, 1885 in the role of Gilda in "Rigoletto".
Mravina returned to Russia in 1886 and was contracted with the Imperial Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre where she sung until 1900.  Her Mariinsky debut was also as Gilda. In addition she also appeared as a guest artist in Europe, London Covent Garden during the 1891 and 1892 seasons where she sung, Marguerite in
"Les Huguenots", Violetta in "La Traviata", the title role of "Martha", Marguerite in "Faust" and Juliette in "Romeo et Juliette". She also sung opera performances in  Constantinople, Vienna, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and throughout Spain and Italy. In 1893 she sung Elsa to Angelo Masini's Lohengrin in the Italian opera season at the Bolshoi as well as Kharkov in 1901 and 1903.  She left the Imperial Opera due to a disagreement with the management over the petty jealousness of Medea Figner.  Her husband
Captain Ludwig Koribu-Dashkevich divorced her and took half the wealth she had acquired
and broke her heart.  The divorce forced her to become a concert singer, where she sung throughout Russia, as well as London and Berlin.  As a concert singer she also performed with some of her colleagues including, contralto Maria Dolina and tenor Nikolai Bolshakov.  During a concert tour in Siberia in 1903 she was taken ill with smallpox due to the medical treatment she had to undergo to save her face had to retire from the concert stage. She moved to Yalta and took up residence in a room in the fanciest hotel in town, "The Russia".  She also contracted abdominal tuberculosis and when she would occasionally give a recital for the hotel guests, it pained her to the point that she was forced to stop singing entirely.  She gave away most of her fortune to tuberculosis research and patient care and lived on the sale of her jewelry during her last years.  She passed from a heart attack and was buried in her Juliette costume in Yalta.  Bizarrely her tombstone was destroyed during World War II in a Nazi raid and was not replaced until 1979.  She was also the aunt of conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky who was named in her honor.
Composer Alexandre Glazunov described her, "Ms. Mravina is our pride, our excellent, the only coloratura singer, whom we bravely put alongside the first-class European stars of vocal art, has a rare stage talent."
She sung some 30 leading lyric and coloratura roles including: Lyudmila (Ruslan and Lyudmila), Antonida (Life of the Tsar), Tamara (Demon), Tatiana (Yevgeny Onegin), Snegurochka, Violetta (La Traviata), Elsa (Lohengrin), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Oksana (The Night Before Christmas, which she created), Agnes Sorel (Saracen), Princess (Goryusha), Fornarins (Raphael), Musetta (La Boheme), Olympia (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Alice Ford (Falstaff), The Snow Maiden,  Marguerite(Faust), Juliette (Romeo et Juliette), Marguerite Valois (Les Huguenots), Manon (Manon) Martha (Martha), Baucis (Philemon and Baucis), Mignon (Mignon) Lakme (Lakme), Rosina (Il Barbiere), Zerlina (Fra Diavolo) and Micaela (Carmen)
Several composers including Rimsky Korsakov dedicated songs to her.
Harmonie Autographs and Music, Inc
Appraiser and Music Antiquarian
New York, NY
All Autographs Guaranteed Authentic!