Video: "Doomed to love": how an outstanding opera singer Sergei Lemeshev brought girls to mass psychosis
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
42 years ago, the People's Artist of the USSR, an outstanding opera singer Sergei Lemeshev … His voice acted on women magnetically: he had so many fans that they even got the nickname - "lemeshists", and also "syrikhs" - as they were on duty at the "Cheese" store near his house. Officially, the artist was married five times, in addition, he was credited with a large number of novels. Once a psychiatrist told Lemeshev that such a massive psychosis of women can be given a medical explanation …
Sergei Lemeshev was born on June 27 (according to the new style - July 10), 1902 in a simple peasant family, in the village of Staroye Knyazevo, Tver province. Lemeshev was very lucky with the caring people who took part in his fate: the school director Nikolai Kvashnin drew attention to his vocal abilities and asked his wife, who received a conservatory education, to teach the talented child singing skills.
In Tver, Lemeshev attended courses at a music school, from where he was given a recommendation to the Moscow Conservatory. Lemeshev first appeared on the theater stage in 1924, and in 1931 he made his debut at the Bolshoi Theater, of which he was a soloist until 1965. He performed opera arias, folk songs and old romances with incredible success. And Lemeshev's "calling card" was the role of Vladimir Lensky in "Eugene Onegin", which he performed about 500 times in his entire life.
After the release of the film "Musical Story" in 1940, the number of the artist's fans increased. Lemeshev's success among women was so overwhelming that they began to call him "doomed to love", and his female fans - "lemeshists" and "syrikhi". They arranged shifts in the Cheese store near his house, and when he appeared on the street, they followed him in a whole procession, with a gramophone in hand, from which the sounds of his famous arias were heard.
Lemeshev's first love was the daughter of the school director, Galina Kvashnina, but her parents were against their marriage. (Galina could not forget Lemeshev until the end of her days). But his conservative curator Ivan Sokolov agreed to marry his daughter Natalia, however, this union did not last long. The second wife of the artist was the officer's widow Alisa Bagrin-Kamenskaya. They lived together for 11 years until the singer became interested in actress Nora Polonskaya. She introduced him to Lyubov Varzer, who became his third wife. And this marriage did not last long - the woman could not come to terms with the constant betrayal of the singer. For the fourth time, Lemeshev married the singer Irina Maslennikova, who gave birth to his daughter Maria. And the last, fifth wife of the artist was the singer Vera Kudryavtseva. He lived with her for more than 25 years, until his death in 1977.
Women fell in love with Lemeshev at first sight and were ready to follow him to the ends of the world, leaving their families behind. The singer's wives had to put up with the constant presence of fans in his life. Some even managed to be friends with them. Lemeshev himself was tired of such increased female attention, but he could not escape the fans - the highest reward for them was the opportunity to lead him from the theater to the car.
Lemeshev's daughter Maria recalled: “They literally lost their minds! When at the Bolshoi one of those whom they considered a competitor to the Pope sang, these women disrupted the performances, whistling and meowing. And they almost killed my mother, the opera singer Irina Maslennikova, right on the stage, dropping two sacks of coppers on her from the upper tier."
Some especially impressionable young ladies fainted from delight, while others proved their love with their fists: the lemeshists often fought with fans of another soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Ivan Kozlovsky, and even went to court proceedings. They say that none of the artists in the entire history of the theater had as many fans as Lemeshev.
One friend of a psychiatrist once told Lemeshev that it was time for the "syrikhs" to open a special department in his clinic - they needed hospitalization. At the same time, the doctor tried to give a qualified explanation of their inadequate behavior: in his opinion, this was caused by the singer's unusual timbre, which affected the listeners like hypnosis. “The timbre of your voice affects them erotically. Such phenomenal luck for you with women,”he said to the singer.
In his declining years, the singer began to treat his fans more tolerantly. He said: “I look at them and think: my God, how time flies! I have known this one for 30 years, and this one for 20 years. And how old they are, and how old I am. " But one day he came home dumbfounded: “A 17-year-old girl has declared her love to me on the boulevard. But I am already over seventy! " The wife just shrugged her shoulders: "You are doomed to love."
And the first Anatoly Solovyanenko became the Soviet tenor who sang at the Metropolitan Opera
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