Oda Slobodskaya

Oda Abramovna Slobodskaya (, 28 November OS/10 December 1888 NS – 30 July 1970) was a Russian operatic soprano who became a British citizen.

Early life Slobodskaya was born on 28 November 1888 in Vilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania). She was one of seven children. She won a scholarship for secondary education but, having completed her schooling, to her displeasure, found herself working with her parents in a second-hand clothes shop.

Knowing she had a good voice, in 1907 she applied for an audition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Having no classical repertoire she sang the simple songs she had learned as a child. Despite this lack of sophistication, her vocal potential was immediately apparent. The Director, Glazunov, and Natalya Iretskaya (the most important Russian singing tutor and herself a pupil of Pauline Viardot) accepted her and awarded her a scholarship for nine years' study.

The Mariinsky Theatre In 1916 Slobodskaya made her debut, as Lisa in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades the Mariinsky Theatre. Chaliapin then invited her to be principal soprano in the company he was forming to tour Western Europe and she sang with him in Paris.

To America The impresario Rabinoff organised for Slobodskaya to tour in North and South America as star soloist with The Ukrainian Chorus, But, as a displaced Russian living abroad when appreciation of the Russian repertoire was minimal, Slobodskaya had difficulty finding a good manager. To augment her classical career, she created a parallel identity in vaudeville, singing operatic arias and good quality ballads under the pseudonym "Odali Careno". She applied for American citizenship in 1922 she also recorded Russian art songs including many by pianist/composer Nicolas Medtner. There followed wartime entertainment work and participation in the National Gallery Concerts of Myra Hess.

Records After the war, during which her husband had died, Slobodskaya's career was much reduced, though she made her only movie appearance as a Prima Donna in the 1951 film The Magic Box. She rekindled her concert career with some highly acclaimed recitals in the Wigmore Hall. Saga records "rediscovered" her in the late 1950s and released two LP records. These records prompted Decca to recall that they had several unissued Slobodskaya recordings from 1939–1945 which included the definitive performance of "Tatiana's letter Scene" from Eugene Onegin. These were released in 1961 together with some newly recorded items. The Shostakovitch Six Spanish Songs, Kabalevsky Seven Nursery Rhymes, a fine set of Polish songs and an LP of classical Russian art and folk songs also followed. In 1974 SAGA released a record (numbered SAGA 5357) on which Slobodskaya sings songs by Mussorgsky, accompanied on piano by Ivor Newton.

Tributes Slobodskaya had a rich, strongly accented speaking voice and a characterful turn of phrase, and liked to give spoken introductions to her songs. This led to one of her last, great successes, in the speaking role of Narrator in "Peter and the Wolf", recording date unknown and released on Fidelio records in 1964 with the Colonne Concerts Orchestra under Isaie Disenhaus.

She was a much admired Professor of Singing at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, where her pupils included sopranos Patricia Reakes and Yvonne Fuller and contraltos Anne Collins and Annette Thompson, and, until her very last year, continued to give recitals of Russian song. She died in London, aged 81, on 30 July 1970.

Filmography Whom the Gods Love (1936) The Magic Box (1951)