Kipras Petrauskas sings Faust‘s cavatina ‘Salut, demeure chaste et pure’ скачать в хорошем качестве

Kipras Petrauskas sings Faust‘s cavatina ‘Salut, demeure chaste et pure’

The great Lithuanian tenor Kipras Petrauskas (1885-1968) received his musical education from his father (who was a woodworker by trade and also worked as organist for various churches) and his elder brother Mikas (who was a well-known music teacher and composer). His artistic career began in 1905 (and after many striking twists, ended!) in Vilnius where he began to sing in his brother‘s musical productions. Realizing that he needed further training, Petrauskas subsequently moved to St. Petersburg where he continued his vocal studies at the conservatory. During his four years there, he sang the leading tenor roles in many student productions, including Yevgeny Onegin, Faust and others. Upon leaving the Conservatory, then already a popular tenor Кипрiанъ Пiатровскiй was bombarded by contracts. He chose the Mariinsky theatre in St. Petergsburg where he debuted in the Herzog‘s role in Rigoletto in 1911. Petrauskas remained there for the next decade and developed more than 50 memorable roles, including those in La Traviata, Tosca, La Bohème, Manon, Faust and others. As Petrauskas matured, he began to take on more dramatic roles such as Don José in Carmen, Radames in Aida, Canio in Pagliacci, the title roles in Andrea Chénier, Lohengrin and even Otello. The handsome tenor swept along many beauties of St. Petersburg (the M. and K. Petrauskas‘ museum in Kaunas keeps some 400 their billets-doux). After returning to his native Lithuania in the early 1920s, the singer was instrumental in establishing the Lithuanian Opera Theatre in the town of Kaunas (the Opera was opened on December 31, 1920; after the WWII, it moved to Vilnius). In 1928 Petrauskas accompanied Fedor Shaliapin, his close friend since St. Peterburg days, on the Berlin stage. The next year and with the same company he took a long tour through Europe to the South America (a similar trip took place also in 1936). In 1933, the singer made his impressive La Scala debut as Grishka Kuterma in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh. Kipras Petrauskas is remembered for his charming lyricism, natural artistic restraint, good taste and his considerable musicianship which permeated every phrase he sang. He enjoyed an unusually long career (more than fifty years) and developed an impressive repertoire of over eighty roles. His final stage appearance was as Don José in Carmen in 1958 in Vilnius, at the age of 73. By that time, the elderly tenor was a Professor of Voice at the Vilnius Conservatory, a post he assumed in 1949. Most of his his ‘golden’ records were produced between 1920 and 1948 on the shellac disks. ‘The great Lithuanian tenor’ is a splendid set of two CDs (Lithuania, Prior Musica, 2008) containing Petrauskas’ remastered records from Algirdas Motieka collection and a 32-page booklet. The first CD is devoted to the operatic repertoire, the second one covers song repertoire. In this recording, Petrauskas offers a Russian language version of Faust‘s cavatine ‘Salut, demeure chaste et pure’ from the famous Gounod’s opera. The shellac record was published by Odeon.