Private Opera

The Private Opera (Russian: Частная Опера), also known as:

was a private operatic enterprise, a company established in 1885 by famous Russian industrialist and philanthropist Savva Mamontov, who staged the operas, conducted the orchestra, trained the actors, taught them singing and paid all the expenses.

At first the company was organised in Abramtsevo Estate located north of Moscow. The company was joined by Feodor Chaliapin in the autumn of 1896 and by Sergei Rachmaninov in the autumn of 1897 who took up the post of assistant conductor.

Mamontov united in his theatre the most talented singers, like Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, Pyotr Lodiy, Vladimir Lossky, Pyotr Olenin, Vera Petrova-Zvantseva, Nadezhda Salina, Anton Sekar-Rozhansky, Feodor Chaliapin, Nikolai Shevelev, Vasily Shkafer, Elena Tsvetkova and others.

He invited such composers as Sergei Vasilenko, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Vasily Kalinnikov, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Decorations and costumes for the operas were designed by such artists as the brothers Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, Konstantin and Sergei Korovin, Mikhail Vrubel, Mikhail Nesterov, Isaac Levitan, Sergei Malyutin, Vasily Polenov, Valentin Serov, Viktor Simov, Nikolay Chekhov, Alexander Janov, Natalia Goncharova and Ivan Bilibin.

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