Veronika Dudarova

Veronika Borisovna Dudarova (January 15, 2009) was a Soviet and Russian conductor, the first woman to succeed as conductor of symphony orchestras in the 20th century. She became a conductor of the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra in 1947, and led this and other orchestras for sixty years. In 1991, she founded the Symphony Orchestra of Russia.

Early years and family

Veronika Dudarova was born in Baku to an ethnic Ossetian, formerly aristocratic, family. Before she was baptised, the girl was called Maleksima in the family. Her father Aslambek Kambulatovich Dudarov was an oilfield engineer. Like his wife Elena Danilovna (nee Tuskaeva), he had a good ear for music. Along with her sisters Tamara and Amakhtan, Veronika Dudarova received her first musical education in the family. Already at the age of three, she could pick out melodies on the piano by ear. At the age of 6, Dudarova began studying piano at the Children's Music School for Gifted Children at Baku Academy of Music. As she recalled later, her passion for conducting developed during classes of Hungarian composer and conductor Stephan Strasser, who taught gifted children during his visits to Baku.

In the early 1930s Dudarova's father was repressed as an "enemy of the people" and her two elder sisters died. In 1933 Veronika and her mother moved to Leningrad. So that the family's history would not affect Veronica's future, her mother changed her patronymic to Borisovna.

Education

In 1933–1937, she studied at the piano department of the Leningrad Conservatory in Pavel Serebryakov's class. In 1937 Dudarova and her mother moved to Moscow.

Successfully passing the exam, she studied at the Conservatory until 1947 in the classes of Ginzburg and Nikolai Anosov.

In 1944, she became a conductor at the . In 1945-1946 she worked as an assistant conductor at the Opera Studio of the Moscow Conservatory. In 1947 Dudarova became second conductor of the Moscow Regional Philharmonic Orchestra. In its first years, the orchestra performed mainly in small towns of the Moscow region.

Career

Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra (1947–1989) For thirteen years, from 1947 until 1960, Dudarova was a junior conductor at the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra. She collaborated with distinguished performers, including Vladimir Spivakov, Leonid Kogan, Valery Gergiev, Natalia Gutman, and others. Toured Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Japan, Iran, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Peru, and Cuba. In 2003, she offered Pavel Sorokin the post of chief conductor, but remained the artistic director until her death in 2009. When Dudarova died, her orchestra merged into the Russian National Orchestra.

In memories of peers Dudarova went down in history as one of three women who led major professional symphony orchestras for decades. She was distinguished by her indomitable character, willpower, and supreme professionalism. The first woman conductor in the USSR, she also entered the Guinness Book of Records as the only woman to have worked with major orchestras for more than 50 years.

In 1994, four days before a concert celebrating the 220th anniversary of the annexation of Ossetia to Russia and the 210th anniversary of the founding of Vladikavkaz, Dudarova broke her leg. In order not to cancel the concert, she asked for anesthesia, a plaster cast to be made on stage, and to be brought on stage with the conductor's stand before the curtain rose.

Personal life Dudarova's marriage to lasted from 1941 to 1950. In 1950, she married , a composer. They divorced in 1961. In 1963, she married a scientist Gavriil Deborin; they stayed together until his death in 1998. In a 2006 interview, Dudarova said she had five husbands.

In 2008, Dudarova was robbed by two women who introduced themselves as social workers and stole all the conductor's awards: the Order of the October Revolution, the Badge of Honor, the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd and 3rd class, medals, and the Dudarovs' family jewels.

Heritage Dudarova became the protagonist of several documentaries and movies. In the 1987 documentary A Woman Is a Risky Bet: Six Orchestra Conductors, directed by Christina Olofson, Dudarova conducts the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and Choir in a performance of Mozart's Requiem.

The main-belt asteroid 9737 Dudarova was named after her.