Books in Brief: Galina

Galina: A Russian Story, by Galina Vishnevskaya, translated by Guy Daniels (Harcourt Brace, 519 pp., $19.95)

Galina Vishnevskaya, the great Russian soprano whose harsh, imperious voice inspired such modern masterpieces as Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem and Dmitri Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony, has now written an autobiography. Subtitled “A Russian Story,” Galina might just as well have been called “The Bolshoi Archipelago”; in any event, it has about as much in common with the typical confessions of a prima donna as The Maltese Falcon has with The Canary Murder Case. A formidable woman whose aristocratic temperament made it impossible for her to knuckle under to the quotidian pressures of Soviet life, Vishnevskaya married a fellow artist of similar inclinations, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; their daring decision to take Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into their dacha to live and work brought them into direct conflict with the iron will of Yuri Andropov’s KGB and ultimately led to their permanent departure from the Soviet Union. Vishnevskaya’s powerful story is full of ferocious, grandly operatic comminations of vicious authorities and toadying colleagues. (“The great hangman Stalin died as a jackal does, cringing in his hole. And while his confederates hovered over his carcass tearing pieces of the future inheritance out of each other’s teeth, his eyes, already glassy, may have caught a glimpse of the images of those victims tortured or killed under his orders.”) For the less politically minded reader, Galina: A Russian Story also offers striking portraits of Britten and Shostakovich, a judicious amount of backstage gossip, a complete discography, and a revealing discussion of Vishnevskaya’s memorable interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. Essential and exciting reading— for KGB-haters and opera-lovers.

About the Author

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced off Broadway and throughout America.

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Galina: A Russian Story, by Galina Vishnevskaya, translated by Guy Daniels (Harcourt Brace, 519 pp., $19.95)

Galina Vishnevskaya, the great Russian soprano whose harsh, imperious voice inspired such modern masterpieces as Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem and Dmitri Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony, has now written an autobiography. Subtitled “A Russian Story,” Galina might just as well have been called “The Bolshoi Archipelago”; in any event, it has about as much in common with the typical confessions of a prima donna as The Maltese Falcon has with The Canary Murder Case. A formidable woman whose aristocratic temperament made it impossible for her to knuckle under to the quotidian pressures of Soviet life, Vishnevskaya married a fellow artist of similar inclinations, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; their daring decision to take Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into their dacha to live and work brought them into direct conflict with the iron will of Yuri Andropov’s KGB and ultimately led to their permanent departure from the Soviet Union. Vishnevskaya’s powerful story is full of ferocious, grandly operatic comminations of vicious authorities and toadying colleagues. (“The great hangman Stalin died as a jackal does, cringing in his hole. And while his confederates hovered over his carcass tearing pieces of the future inheritance out of each other’s teeth, his eyes, already glassy, may have caught a glimpse of the images of those victims tortured or killed under his orders.”) For the less politically minded reader, Galina: A Russian Story also offers striking portraits of Britten and Shostakovich, a judicious amount of backstage gossip, a complete discography, and a revealing discussion of Vishnevskaya’s memorable interpretation of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. Essential and exciting reading— for KGB-haters and opera-lovers.

About the Author

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. Satchmo at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about Louis Armstrong, has been produced off Broadway and throughout America.