Life

Mark Reizen was born in the village of Zaitsevo, Ukraine. There were four brothers and a sister in his mining family. The grandfather was already over 100 years old but still energetic and alert. The entire family was musically trained and the instruments such as mandolin, guitar, balalaika or accordion would pass from hand to hand and every one would play.

 

With the start of the Great War, Reizen was drafted into the Tsarist army. By then, he had already grown to an impressive height of over 1.90 m, which worried his mother a lot. “You would make such a clear target”, she shouted. At the front, Mark was twice wounded and twice decorated with St George's Cross 4th class for bravery, the highest decoration for an ordinary soldier.

 

In the army, the beauty and power of his voice became evident. He and a music-loving commander started an instrumental and vocal music group, performing for the troops. After his second injury, he was discharged. When the war ended, he enrolled at the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute with the aim of graduating as an engineer.

 

A friend secretly signed him in for an audition at the Kharkov conservatory. “Reizen!” he heard in the auditorium and all that he could think was to stand up and yell “Present” army style. He was summoned on the stage and was asked to sing. All he knew were folk songs, which were of no interest to the jury, so they asked him to sing a few bars.

 

In a depressed mood, he went back home to his studies. Some two weeks later, the same friend dragged him to read the posted results of the auditions at the conservatory. It appeared that his few scales had impressed the jury after all. He was invited to study with Kharkhov's most eminent singing teacher, the Italian professor Federico Bugamelli.

 

His operatic debut came in 1921 at Kharkov , singing the role of Pimen (Boris Godunov). In 1925, he was engaged by the Mariinsky Theatre in Leningrad. As a leading soloist, he was to sing there for the next 25 years. His roles included, Ivan Susanin, the Viking Guest, Don Basilio, Mephistopheles (Faust), Ruslan, Prince Gremin and many others. He became an interpreter of the great Mussorgsky roles, Boris Godunov and Dosifei.

 

Boris Godunov (Boris Godunov)

The Viking (Sadko)

 

During WW II, he often performed at the front. In 1941, a memorable performance took place at the Mayakovsky Metro station in a besieged Moscow. He also performed in 1945 at the great victory concert in the Kremlin. As one of the dictator's favorite artists, a lot has been said about his relationship with Stalin. As a Jew in the Soviet Union, his ambiguous situation has been backed by little evidence.

 

He rarely went abroad and when he did he gained huge successes. There were only two tours outside Russia within a twenty years gap (in the 30s and 50s). On a 1930 tour of European cities, London, Monaco, Paris and Berlin, stories recount that at a Monte Carlo performance the hall was so crammed that people stood on their feet during the whole show.

 

People who knew him recall that he was not an easy person. He hated social conventions and familiarity. He was not selfish or full of pride. He recorded songs and performed on television in his 80s. In honor of his 90th birthday, he sang the role of Gremin at the Bolshoi theatre. This amazing performance has been preserved on film and is shown on US cultural television stations.

 

Olga Fyodorova describes him as “ tall, elegant and handsome as ever. Despite his almost unbelievable age, Reizen was absolutely irresistible in uniform… “. This “feat” got Reizen recognition into the Guinness Book of Records.

 

Anecdotes

 

In 1930, Reizen went on a tour of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, sang Mephistopheles (Faust) and was immediately noticed by Stalin, who was a music and opera lover. He described a somewhat comical scene as he was invited to the official government box during the intermission, where, dressed as the Devil, he was introduced to Stalin.

 

The dialogue went something like this:

•  You sing very well.

              •  Thank you.

The following day and in typical Soviet style, he was surprised by the unannounced visit of an official car with a soldier, who was under orders to take him hunting apartments. This is how Mark Reizen was engaged at the Bolshoi.

 

Victor Han recounted another story, which occurred in Bucharest in 1952, and I quote:

 

“During the 1952 visit and as part of a Wagnerian evening, he performed in the Wotan's great scene, George Georgescu conducting. The Bucharest public was quite aware of the music. At the end of the great aria, the applause was no more than a polite one. Reizen was human too and it may not have been his best performance. He knew it too well!  Because of the polite applause, he called on the maestro to start the whole thing "Da capo". He brought the house down with ovations!”

 

Reizen was a complete artist and believed that opera was a complex representation in which details should not be neglected. This is shown in another tale by courtesy of Victor Han:

 

“At that time, my aunt was a student at the Bucharest conservatory. With a couple of colleagues, she managed to sneak in at a rehearsal for Boris. They had to stay low and hidden on their "four paws" in a box. Word was out that the Great Reizen did not tolerate public during rehearsal, so they were afraid to be found and evicted.

The stage of the old opera house was small and dusty. A giant of a man, Reizen was dressed in an elegant blue suit and sometimes found difficulty with ample movements because the stage was too small. In addition to singing the title role, he also assumed the stage direction. It took place in a theatre where very few around him understood Russian.

At the end of the death scene, the Tsar collapsed from the throne to the floor (causing a little cloud of dust) and, while the orchestra played the wonderful ending bars, curtain fell. As soon as it was over, Reizen got up and informed that he wanted to see the technician operating the curtain "on the double". When he got heed of this, the poor man was terrified!

 

In the end, things got quiet and Reizen explained that the proper way for the curtain to come down was slowly, at a pace with the music. Indeed once this was done, the effect of the scene was greatly enhanced. My aunt says that she still mentions this story to her piano students as an example of why a performance should be ‘total' and no detail overlooked.”

 

 

Voice

 

Reizen was considered by many as having one of the most beautiful and powerful bass voices of the century and with the finest of tastes and musicality. He left a great legacy of recordings, including complete operas, songs, aria recitals and some memorable filmed performances, including the “Bolshoi Concert”, “Khovanschina” and “Aleko”.

 

He was famous for his unusual vocal range extending over two and a half octaves up to a high G and even higher. A sample of Reizen's “hair raising high G”, so called by Conrad L. Osborne, may be heard in the recording of the 1938 Ruslan's aria and scene with the Head, played by his friend Maksim Mikhailov, another Russian great bass.

 

Reizen recounts a story of how he found out about his high vocal range. In the late 1930s, there was a jubilee celebration for the famous soprano Antonina Nezhdanova at the Bolshoi. After the show, some friends were invited to a party at her apartment. There were wine and toasts, as in any good Russian party.

 

Getting on towards the wee hours of the morning, someone asked Mark to sing! At first he was reluctant. They insisted and the conductor Nikolai Golovanov (Nezdanova's husband) sat at the piano. Finally, Mark said he would sing the romance “How could I in song tell my sorrow” by Malashkin. Golovanov asked in what key he would sing the song.

 

Reizen said that with all those toasts he could not remember tonality. Golovanov started to play. Reizen related as to the way he sang and that he easily took the ending high note and held it for a long time.

Only then did he notice from the corner of his eye that the audience was “falling off their chairs”. They realized that Golovanov had played the tenor version of the song and Reizen had effortlessly sung a high A flat, well into the upper baritone range!

Even today, we do not know all the “secrets” of his technique. He must have been doing something right to maintain his voice for an amazingly long time!

Audio files ** (removed one month after release in April 2005)

 

Audio 1 Exploit (Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky) sung by Mark Reizen

 

Audio 2 Frenzied nights (Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky) sung by Mark Reizen

Audio 3 Sadko – The Viking song sung by Mark Reizen in 1938

 

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Acknowledgment

Special thanks to Victor Han, Esq., for providing the audios and hard to find information about the great bass.

 

 

(a.t.)

Opera is a spectacular art form combining music, action and words, where the comedy or drama is enhanced by the words, sung in the original or other language. Instrumental works draw great attention and delight from the sound of music alone but opera has a triple edge advantage: Music, action and words sung by the human voice, the supreme instrument.