Soviet auditions Vilnius, Kishinev, Moscow

 

In the 1980s Gosconcert arranged regional auditions for opera singers in Vilnius and Kishinev (Chisinau) for foreign agents and opera houses. In Vilnius, singers came from the Baltic states and around and in Kishinev from the Southwest regions of the Soviet Union.

What was striking was what great voices were on display but how few good singers. I didn't find any fully formed talent and didn't offer management to a single artist. Nevertheless these were interesting experiences totally different to anything in the West.

I don't think any of the numerous participants ever made it either. I have had my share of poor decisions concerning singers in audition. I declined to take on Anne-Sophie von Otter for example. Also Ermonela Jaho. Not quite as bad a mistake as Leo Blech's judgement of Birgit Nilsson 'unmusical and untalented.'

What did I take away from these experiences? The thought that we should organise an exchange between the UK and USSR whereby they invited our teachers to teach this raw Soviet talent and they sent their teachers to us to learn how we teach here in the West. Nothing came of that of course and then soon the USSR was no more and the Iron Curtain lifted exposing former Soviet singers to international standards. They adopted these very quickly. Where are the Slavic Wobbles of yesteryear?

The Gosconcert auditions took place over 2 days each and we has an opportunity to go to a performance in the evening of the first day.

In Kishinev, we were treated to an excellent performance of La Bayadere by the Moldovan National Ballet with many Bessarabian beauties on show.

In Vilnius we saw 'Otello' with Virgilius Noreika in the title role. 

Noreika was as tall as many a Lithuanian basketball player and had a voice along Corelli lines. He had not sung dramatic roles in his career. As with many tenors, Otello came at the end. What to make of this strange performance?  You have to know that by that time Noreika was a Lithuanian institution. I think he was even head of the opera company in Vilnius. He certainly behaved as if he was with a coterie of followers including a chauffeur/gofer straight out of Dickens. 

Noreika's position also seemed to entitle him to do what he wanted on stage both musically and histrionically. His performance was certainly striking but not always for the right reasons. The rest of the cast were pretty forgettable. The conductor was an interesting man called Jonas Alexa. He reminded me of Temirkanov. The only mention of him I can find on Google is as conductor of a record of Italian overtures and arias with the tenor Gegam Grigorian and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. He was a fine conductor I would have liked to work with but lacking in what they call 'the talents they don't teach you in conservatoire.'

Going back to Noreika, I had previously taken an interest in him following his studies at the Scuola alla Scala and debut there as Pinkerton I believe. He was a regular at the Berlin Staatsoper during DDR times. I arranged an audition for Sir John Tooley General Administrator of Covent Garden on a day when both were in the divided city. I had to organise one of the special taxis which could cross over the border to take Tooley to the East and hear Noreika's audition.

Nothing came of it. I don't remember Tooley's reasons for not engaging him. Maybe he picked up on Noreika's undisciplined ways but you couldn't ignore the voice nor his striking appearance. I guess Bonisolli would be a comparison but his meshuggas didn't prevent him from making a career.

Going to Vilnius and Kishinev was an advenure in those days. Instead for travelling to the latter via Moscow I chose to fly to Bucharest (still under Ceaușescu) and take a train to Kishinev in neighbouring Moldova.

Instead of landing in Bucharest we were diverted to Constanta on the Black Sea coast. From there we were put on a train to Bucharest. Our fellow passengers were straight out of Olivia Manning's 'Balkan Trilogy.' We arrived around midnight at the Gara de Nord, too late to travel on to Kishinev. The next train didn't leave for another 4 hours or so. I decided just to wait in the station rather than check into the Holiday Inn nearby. Sitting on my case I experienced scenes out of 'Inferno' with Bucharest's homeless and destitute sheltering there overnight. When the ticket office opened I bought a ticket to Kishinev via a bizarre machine operated by a strange woman who had to manhandle various levers as if she were doing some sort of exercises on a gym apparatus. 

I boarded the train and sat with a group of amiable Bulgarian 'Gastarbeiter.' At Iasi (pronounced 'Yash') the train had to be lifted up and the wheels changed for the wider gauge in the Soviet Union. You could stay in your seat while this laborious process took place. I remembered that Celibidache's father was the Prefect of Iasi and imagined his childhood there. He said he had grown up speaking Yiddish as well as Romanian such was the size of the Jewish community there.

Soon, there was passport control by the Romanians and then Russians. When the Russians came (a troop of about four in military uniform) the officer in charge looked at our passports and then told the Bulgarians to leave the compartment signalling me to remain there. After some time he returned, sat opposite and started to interrogate me. His manner was not aggressive and his English quite good but I couldn't understand what he was after. His questions didn't seem to be going in any particular direction and then suddenly it dawned on me; he just wanted to practice his English. Once I had twigged, I began to compliment him on his English and asked if he had ever been to England. He was flattered but answered the question with a baleful look. At this I said he absolutely must come to England and look me up when he was there. I could see from his expression that grateful as he was, that was never going to be a possibility for him.

Once underway, I decided to go to the restaurant car and get something to eat. It was empty apart from a startlingly beautiful woman in restaurant staff uniform and what seemed like her coterie of pimps and bouncers. She looked at me as if to say 'what on earth do you want.' When I asked if I could get something to eat she looked blank as if this idea had never entered the mind of anyone coming into the restaurant car. After some persistence from me and mental adjustment on her part, She said the word 'Carbonade.' That sounded good so I agreed to have that. After a very long time indeed, she appeared with an absolutely delicious plate of true Carbonade. A miracle under the circumstances. 

There followed a comedy when it came to payment. I offered Romanian Lei but she appeared offended by the very idea. By now her gang had re-appeared so I quickly rummaged for some dollars at which I was free to go.

Arriving at Kishinev, I was met by my old friend Alexander Gussev which as a surprise because I had not told anybody about my arrival. He said he had gone to the station to meet every train from Bucharest since the previous day on the chance I was on it. That seemed to be something perfectly normal in the old USSR.

While in Kishinev, I had a mission to contact a Refusenik whose name and phone number I had been given by my cousin Greville Janner. I was to call him from a public phone box and reassure him his case had not been forgotten and people were still working to get him to Israel. I made the call but there was no answer.

Also during my short stay I visited a Jewish community centre where they were baking Matzo for Pesach. Sitting there was a group of very ancient men. When I explained I was from London they brightened up and cried 'Misses Tetcher,' 'Misses Tetcher.' with great approval.

Vilnius was a different adventure. I felt connected in that our family was from Lithuania but Vilnius or Vilno had been Polish, Russian as well as under German and even French occupation until July 1944 when it became the capital of Lithuania once more. We were from Kovno Goberno in the West.

While there I asked our interpreter/guide where I could find the main Synagogue. Vilno/Vilnius had been known as the Jerusalem of the North. She seemed reluctant to tell me so I invented some guff about how my people and her people had lived peaceably alongside eachother for hundreds of years and that was my reason for asking. Eventually she gave me directions so off I went. On the way, passing through quiet narrow streets, I fancied I heard a choir chanting some Hebrew prayer. I followed the sound but never found its source. That was a ghostly experience. 

I found the synagogue eventually. It was under repair but a light was on. I went inside and discovered an ancient Jewish man with one eye standing in the middle of works being carrid out by two much younger men. He didn't seem surprised to see me. He told me that before the first world war the population had been 90% Jewish, 7 % Gypsy and 3% Lithuanian. I now know this was incorrect but that's what he said. I asked him about the works and whether the workmen were Jewish. He looked at me as if I was crazy. They were Lithuanians.

He had obviously survived the second world war whether in Lithuania (unlikely) or following re-settlement in the USSR. His name was Lebers (Leber = Liver). I like to think Lebers could also mean survivor.

Later standing in a queue for I remember not what I got talking to some young people perhaps in their 30s. They told me the Jewish population in Vilnius was then 10,000. Most of their parents generation had survived the war in Russia and had moved back since. Many had managed to emigrate to Israel.