The fate of this singer is reminiscent of a children's fairy tale about Cinderella. The songs performed by Anastasia Vyaltseva were equally loved by ordinary people and representatives of the aristocratic society.
Childhood and youth
The history of Russian culture knows many cases when a talented performer makes his way to the top of fame from the depths of despair. The Russian pop star Anastasia Dmitrievna Vyaltseva was born on March 13, 1871 in a peasant family. Parents lived in the small village of Altukhovo, Oryol province. My father was engaged in arable farming, and in the winter he worked at a local brick factory. The mother kept the household and raised the children. When the girl was three years old, the head of the family died suddenly.
Mother, together with the children, moved to Kiev, to their relatives, and found a job in a laundry. The Vyaltsevs lived poorly, somehow making ends meet. Nastya did her best to help her mother around the house. Once she asked to study with a dressmaker. The girl was already eight years old and she was accepted into a workshop for sewing ladies' dresses. The future singer began to bring an extra penny into the house. After a while, she was invited to clean the hotel rooms on the famous Khreshchatyk. Touring actors often stayed here.
Anastasia tried not to lose her job and often received additional tips for her diligence. It is possible that over time she would become an administrator at the reception, but a lucky chance intervened in her fate. The fact is that while cleaning the premises, Vyaltseva sang various songs, which she knew a large number of. This singing was heard by a famous actress staying at a hotel. She strongly advised Nastya to take up vocal creativity. In fact, it was a sign from above.
Throwing a bread place in the hotel, Vyaltseva begged to take her into the ballet group of the Kiev theater. The dancer did not work out of her, but the girl was invited to the operetta. In 1892, Anastasia, as they say, passed the casting, and she was enrolled in the troupe of the St. Petersburg Maly Theater. Here she sang in the choir for some time. Theatrical patrons and observers noticed the attractive appearance, temperament and vocal abilities of the performer. One of them, Nikolai Iosifovich Kholeva, took up the "cutting" of natural diamonds.
Formation and career
Nikolai Kholeva, a well-known music lover and philanthropist in St. Petersburg, having heard about the talented singer, came to listen to her and watch. He immediately realized what Vyaltseva was missing for a brilliant career. Since there were no educational institutions where you can get vocal education in those days, the patron paid for the singer for classes with famous teachers and mentors. Anastasia completed a training course, during which she was given a voice. She lived in Italy for several months and studied singing with world famous singers. A year and a half later, the prepared singer gave her first solo concert on the stage of the Moscow Hermitage Theater.
The noble audience greeted Vyaltseva's performance with thunderous applause, turning into a standing ovation. Newspapers spread news of the outstanding singer throughout the country. Following the good news, the singer also went on tour. A passenger steamer was chartered for the trip, on which Anastasia sailed along the entire Volga, from source to mouth. Then she got into a carriage and reached the Urals by rail. After a while, a special carriage was built for the singer, in which she went on tour around the country and abroad. This carriage housed a kitchen, a bath, a servants' place and a recreation area.
Queen of the Russian gramophone
The unprecedented success of Anastasia Vyaltseva is explained by several components. First, she performed folk songs, gypsy romances and popular arias from operas. Secondly, the singer had an attractive appearance and natural charm. In communicating with the public, she was simple and not arrogant. I always tried to perform all the songs that I ordered for an encore. And thirdly, Vyaltseva did not sit still. She spent eight of the twelve months traveling. Arriving even in a small town, the singer arranged a holiday for all residents. And the "uncouth" provincials did not spare money for tickets.
When mass production of gramophone records began in Russia, recordings of Vyaltseva's songs and romances dispersed instantly. The market value of one disc reached six rubles. It was during that period that someone jokingly called the singer “The Queen of the Russian Gramophone”. There was a fair amount of truth in this. Anastasia's voice sounded from the record and in noble meetings, and in merchant shops, and in peasant huts. "My fire", "Troika", "In the moonlight" and other songs people knew by heart.
Personal life melody
A talented singer and a beautiful woman easily attracted the attention of men. But at the same time she remained modest and chaste. In her personal life, she adhered to folk traditions. The general of the guard, the nobleman Vasily Biskupsky, fell in love with the singer. When he was seriously wounded in the Russian-Japanese war, Anastasia put aside her tour and went to the Far East to serve as a sister of mercy and look after her beloved.
The husband and wife did not live long together. At the end of 1912, the singer fell ill. The diagnosis was disappointing - blood cancer. At that time, medicine was powerless. Anastasia Dmitrievna Vyaltseva died in February 1913 at the forty-second year of her life. The great Russian singer was buried at the Nikolskoye cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
