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Oda Slobdskaya sings “Nocturne?“ by Sergei Taneiev. Slobodskaya was born in Vilnius, then part of Russia, and studied with the formidable Natalia Iretskaya, herself a pupil of Pauline Viardot Garcia. She sang major roles in the Mariinsky theatre St Petersburg but after the Revolution and subsequent famine, she left Russia with Fyodor Chaliapin when he brought his own opera company to the west. She went on to sing major roles at Covent Garden, La Scala Milan and other major houses. She eventually married and settled in London where she enjoyed great success as both a concert and opera singer. She continued to give entertaining recitals of Russian songs well into her seventies and was a witty and characterful narrator of Peter and the Wolf. If you can post a synopsis or translation it would be most welcome. Sergei Taneiev was born in1856 and graduated from the Moscow Conservtory in 1875, the first student in the history of the Conservatory to win the gold medal both f
