How did the fate of the daughters of Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Olga and Elena Rostropovich grew up in a legendary family. Their parents were world stars, and from childhood they were accompanied by music that poured literally from everywhere. But at the same time, Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya were not inclined to pamper their daughters. Many years later, the legendary opera singer sincerely regretted the excessive severity, and sometimes harshness, but noted that her girls received the right upbringing.

Hard methods

At that distant time, when Olga and Elena Rostropovich were growing up, it was even impossible to imagine that the children of musicians would not study at a music school. Therefore, both daughters of Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich, at the age of six, went to study at the Central Music School. Galina Pavlovna confesses many years later: all the musicians tortured their children there. The girls returned from classes at about 17-00, did their homework, and then sat down to play. There was no talk at all about any walks. They had to live and study strictly on schedule.

Olga Rostropovich remembers how she disliked music lessons, but she played scales again and again under the supervision of her grandmother Sofia Nikolaevna, who saw her granddaughter as a future pianist. Olga dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but no one even listened to her. She had, like the whole family, to serve music.

In general, the Rostropovich sisters lived very simply: their parents decided everything for them. The main thing that they taught their girls was to stand up for each other with a mountain, to protect their families from any dangers of the outside world. Olga invariably stood up for the younger and very thin Elena, and once beat a local bully, whose mother went to the Rostropovichs to sort things out. But Galina Vishnevskaya, after listening to the visitor, only dropped: "I beat it, so there was a reason for it!"

In the family, Olya and Lena were kept in austerity. They had no right to make remarks during meals, and it was out of the question not to come to the call of the parent or to respond only after a while. You couldn't be in front of your father in a relaxed position, roll your eyes in response to another educational conversation or curl your lips with displeasure. When, shortly before the New Year, the girls broke a vase and tried to hide the traces of their "crime", they were left without gifts. After all, Santa Claus does not come to those who lie.

Olya and Lena very often quarreled among themselves, even fought until their hair was torn out. The reason for the quarrel could be finding out which of them is more like a mother, or a desire to use this or that thing that suddenly turned out to be necessary for the sister.

Mstislav Rostropovich was a supporter of the rigid education system. Without a shadow of regret, he burned the jeans that Galina Vishnevskaya brought to her daughters. When he saw that Olga's prom dress was two centimeters above the knee, he threw such a scandal that Olga even wanted to completely refuse to participate in the prom. True, my mother saved the situation by decorating the outfit with openwork trim, on which she put her incredibly beautiful shawl, knitted with her own hand.

Lena once lingered for a long time from a walk, and when she came home, Galina Vishnevskaya without a word took and cut off the gorgeous braid of her youngest daughter at the root. Dad increased the punishment: after the offense, Lena had the right to wear only a school uniform all year. So she passed the whole year in a headscarf, under which she hid an ugly hairstyle, and in a brown dress.

Continuing the work of parents

Neither Olga nor Elena even thought to rebel or doubt the correctness of the actions of their parents. They knew that it would be just as they said, and therefore did not protest and did not arrange demarches. At the same time, there were many amazing people in their house. Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich were friends with talented, if not brilliant people: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Dmitry Shostakovich, academician of medicine Joseph Kassirsky, legendary athlete Valery Brumel, artist Marc Chagall - after leaving abroad.

When the Rostropovich family was forced to leave the Soviet Union, Olga was 18 years old, Elena - 16. Galina Vishnevskaya and her husband actually left penniless and had to give a lot of concerts around the world to ensure a normal life for themselves and their children. And they immediately assigned their daughters to a girls' school at the existing Catholic monastery of Sant'Olivier in Lausanne.

There they were under the strict supervision of nuns, observed the daily routine and were hidden behind the wall of the school from worldly temptations. The girls were at first in shock, and then they got used to the nuns in black and the abbess in a sharp-angled headdress. Olya and Lena were the first representatives of the USSR in this school, mainly girls from wealthy families in Europe studied there. The sisters were settled on different floors, seated at different desks and tables in the dining room, and were forbidden to speak Russian. But after just six months, both spoke fluent French.

But the sisters still left the walls of the monastery from time to time. They were able to persuade their father to rent a room nearby so that they could play music. True, the girls went to the apartment and back to the monastery only accompanied by nuns.

Almost two years later, Olga and Elena were taken away from school by their parents and transported to America. There they both entered the Juilliard School of Music. At first, in New York, the girls lived in the Catholic Saint Mary's Residence, and then Galina Vishnevskaya rented an apartment for her daughters right in front of the university. And she was almost calm for them: they both received strict, but correct upbringing.

Mstislav Rostropovich managed, while in Europe, to control his daughters. They had no right to stay for a walk if they did not want to receive the strictest reprimand from the Pope. And they obediently came on time.

When Juilliard School was finished, Elena immediately married Stefano Tartini, a talented designer, and left for Paris, and Olga became an artist at Columbia Artists Management, where she played the cello, like her father. But she had no intention of pursuing a career as a cellist. After a while, Olga Rostropovich left her concert activity and became a teacher. The father, of course, was so annoyed by this fact that for three years he did not speak to his eldest daughter. And he forgave her only on the eve of the wedding, when the girl married Olaf Geran-Hermes, the son of a Moroccan billionaire. This marriage, by the way, lasted only a few years.

In 2007, Mstislav Rostropovich died, five years later his wife Galina Vishnevskaya passed away. And daughters, Olga and Elena, now continue their work. Olga heads the Foundation for Aid to Young Musicians, created by Mstislav Leopoldovich, which now bears his name. Elena runs the Vishnevskaya-Rostropovich International Medical Foundation, which vaccinates children around the world.

Olga got married a second time, she has a wonderful husband and two sons, Elena has four heirs, three sons and a daughter. And both sisters admit that they owe everything in their life, first of all, to their parents. Great and loved.

It is believed that love at first sight does not last long. It flared up, burned out and went out. But the love story of the prima donna Galina Vishnevskaya and the brilliant cellist Mstislav Rostropovich convinces that true love at first sight still exists and, consecrated by marriage, can last a lifetime.