#hvorostovsky

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the renowned Russian baritone, has passed aways at the age of just 55. Rest in peace.

From the New York Times obituary:

A favorite of audiences thanks to his alluring voice and heartthrob presence, Mr. Hvorostovsky cut a striking figure, his trim 6-foot-1 frame topped by a mane of prematurely white hair.

He also had a compelling personal story: He escaped the street-gang life as a teenager in a grim Siberian city, found his talent there despite the region’s cultural isolation, and overcame a tempestuous drinking problem that could have ruined his career.

Mr. Hvorostovsky was essentially a lyric baritone with a lighter voice. But his distinctive sound — with its russet colorings and slightly hooded quality, combining Russian-style melancholy with velvety Italianate lyricism — was so penetrating, he could send big top notes soaring. He could command the stage, and at his best he was a nuanced actor.

An only child, Mr. Hvorostovsky lived mostly with his maternal grandmother, whom he adored, and his volatile step-grandfather, a broken-down war hero, whom Mr. Hvorostovsky described in 2003 in a profile in The New Yorker as “vain, arrogant and deeply alcoholic.”

He remained devoted to his father, an engineer, and his mother, a gynecologist. But they both had time-consuming work schedules, and he saw them only on weekends.

That he showed musical talent, at first on the piano, delighted his father, who had wanted to be a musician but had been forced into engineering school by his own father, a Communist die-hard. He arranged for his son to attend music school in the afternoons and evenings.

When that program ended, however, Dmitri, at 14, fell in with street gangs, started drinking vodka, got into brawls and broke his nose several times. Still, he finished high school, and at 16 he was given a new direction when his father enrolled him in a vocational school for choral conductors.

That led to his entering the conservatory in Krasnoyarsk, where he studied with Ekaterina Yoffel, whom Mr. Hvorostovsky remembered as “powerful, possessive, tough, cynical and very honest.” She taught him breath control, and his excellence at sustaining long phrases on a single breath would later be envied by colleagues.

Anna Netrebko - MOSCOW NIGHTS - Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Conducted by Maestro Valery Gergiev.