On 13 December in honour of People’s Artist of the RSFSR Yuri Marusin the historic Mariinsky Theatre will stage the opera I pagliacci
Yuri Marusin was born in the mining town of Kizel in the Urals. In 1970 he entered the Leningrad Conservatoire, where he studied under Yevgeny Olkhovsky, one of the most senior representatives of the Leningrad vocal school.
In 1972, while still a student at the conservatoire, Marusin became a soloist at the Maly Opera Theatre. One of the first roles in his repertoire was that of Gavrilov in Rodion Shchedrin’s opera Not Love Alone. This production was praised by Dmitry Shostakovich. Marusin subsequently performed the role of Levko in Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, and with the role of Vaudémont in Iolanta he began to assimilate the legacy of Tchaikovsky.
In 1976, one year after graduating from the conservatoire, Marusin won 1st prize at an opera competition in the Italian town of Vercelli. Marusin continued to perform in Italy in the 1977–1978 season: he was given a traineeship in Milan, while in May 1978 – the bicentenary of La Scala – he made his debut at that illustrious theatre. Marusin’s skill was highly praised by Claudio Abbado, who invited the singer to perform the role of the Pretender in Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov the next season. In the next few years Marusin sang to unfailing acclaim in Italian theatres. In 1982 he won the Giuseppe Verdi and Arturo Toscanini Gold Medal as the finest foreign singer of the season at La Scala for his performance of the role of Gabriele in Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra. That production had a truly stellar cast – Mirella Freni, Piero Cappuccilli and Nicolai Ghiaurov... That same year, Marusin became a member of the Kirov (Mariinsky) Opera.
In the latter half of the 1980s Marusin frequently appeared at the Wiener Staatsoper at the invitation of Claudio Abbado. Famed roles from that time include Prince Golitsyn in Musorgsky’s Khovanshchina (1989). Two years later Marusin sang the role of Andrei Khovansky in the same opera at the Mariinsky Theatre. Video recordings of both performances received lofty praise from the critics.
In1987 Marusin made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London, performing the roles of Lensky, Herman and the Pretender with the Kirov Theatre. Marusin’s debut at the famed theatre drew warm responses from the press. His Herman, wrote one British critic, “is not an expressionistically wild madman but rather tortured and sensitive, humble in his despair, knowing too well how it will all end.”
In the 1990s Marusin toured to Salzburg, Madrid and New York and took part in the Glyndebourne Festival among other famous music forums. His crowning role has always been Herman in The Queen of Spades, though he has also sung almost every classical tenor role in the Russian, Italian and French opera repertoire. To no lesser acclaim he has performed 20th century music including roles in operas by Prokofiev (Anatoly Kuragin in War and Peace and Alexei in The Gambler) and Janáček’s song cycle The Diary of One Who Disappeared.
Vladimir Khavrov
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