Russian soprano Tamara Milashkina passed away on January 10 in Vienna at the age of 89. She had been a leading singer at the Bolshoi Theater since the Soviet era. She was the first Russian singer to perform at La Scala in Milan, and continued her international career with a series of appearances at various opera houses in Europe.
Born in Astrakhan, near the Caspian Sea in southern Russia, she became a member of the Bolshoi Theater in 1958 and remained a principal member until 1989, when she left the theater. From 1961 to 1962, she studied at the Opera Studio of La Scala. During her stay in Italy, she appeared as Lydia in Verdi’s “The Battle of Legnano” conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, becoming the first Soviet soprano to appear on the La Scala stage.
She excelled in the roles of Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades,” Tatiana in “Evgeny Onegin,” and Natasha in Prokofiev’s “War and Peace. She continued to appear at La Scala, appearing in “The Queen of Spades” and “War and Peace” in 1964, and “Evgeny Onegin” and Borodin’s “Prince Igor” in 1973.
In addition to La Scala, she performed Tosca at the Opéra National de Paris in 1969 and Tosca and Tatiana at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1974, and continued to appear at the Norwegian National Opera, Finnish National Opera, and Hungarian State Opera. She also appeared on stage at the Metropolitan Opera in 1975 during the Bolshoi Theatre’s U.S. tour.
She has made many recordings for the former Soviet state-run “Melodia Label. A representative album is “The Queen of Spades” from 1974 at the Bolshoi Theatre, conducted by Mark Ermler and performed with her husband, tenor Vladimir Atrantov. She was awarded the Soviet People’s Artist Prize in 1973 and the Glinka State Prize in 1982.
PHOTO：Mosfilm
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