Aleksei Bolshakov Di Provenza (in Russian)

Aleksei Bolshakov (19141979) is one of many Bolshoi singers whose names and reputations have faded somewhat with the passage of time. Although he enjoyed a distinguished operatic career after the Second World War, there were a number of baritones vying for the public s affections during this period. Among them were the elegant, plaintivevoiced Pavel Lisitsian, the sturdy, reliable Andrei and Aleksei Ivanov, and the Estonian Georg Ots, who made frequent guest appearances at the theater. The hefty competition, and the fact that Bolshakov left fewer recordings than his colleagues, might explain his comparative neglect by collectors today. Bolshakov was born to a peasant family in Samara, where he attended school and eventually graduated from a construction technical college. In 1935 he was admitted to the Construction Institute in Kuybyshev, studying there by day and taking vocal classes at the local musical institute in the evenings. After serving in the military during WWII, Bolshakov sang for a