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Pavel Andreyev. 25 June 1942
Pavel Zakharovich Andreyev was one of those Russian singers who combined in his artistic career the great past of the Mariinsky Theatre and a theatre that took a new name but inherited old traditions. He was one of few to have sung before Russian soldiers during both the First and Second World Wars. His characters onstage were Russian bogatyrs – Prince Igor, Ruslan and Stepan Razin. A unique case in theatre history came when Fokine was staging the ballet Stepan Razin to the music of Glazunov’s symphonic poem – he invited the opera singer to perform the lead role. Andreyev sang as Boris in Boris Godunov alternately with Chaliapin, and in the 1911–1912 season in Chaliapin’s production of Khovanshchina at the Mariinsky Theatre he created an unforgettable image as Shaklovity. “The audience waited and was dying in suspense when Andreyev as Shaklovity sang ‘The nest of streltsy is asleep. Sleep, Russian people. The enemy is not watchful,’ recalled the academic Dmitry Likhachev, who had seen Andreyev as a boy onstage in 1918. “The audience arose when Andreyev concluded his monologue with a prayer: ‘Oh, God, take away the sins of the world, hear me, do not let Russia perish at the hands of evil mercenaries.’ Andreyev would sing this aria up to three times – the audience demanded encores. Many cried.”*
When the board decided to evacuate the company to Molotov (Perm), Pavel Andreyev and his wife Lyubov Andreyeva-Delmas categorically refused to go: “All of the performers must not leave the city: who will entertain the fighters in their brief hours of leisure and inspire them to feats of arms? If I have to then I have enough courage and strength to take up a rifle.”**
He sang in dug-outs, in the forest and in the fields whatever the weather, and in ferocious minus 30°C temperatures. When he sang the steam poured out of his mouth, risking his beautiful voice.
* D. S. Likhachev. Memoirs. St Petersburg. 1995. PP. 93–95
** Quote after D. Lebedev. P. Z. Andreyev. An Outline of Life and Artistic Activity. Leningrad, 1971. P. 53