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Opera “The Quiet Don” in the Performance of Paul Robeson

On April 9, 2018, it is the 120th anniversary of Paul Robeson, a well-known American singer, actor, human rights activist, the winner of the International Stalin Prize “For Strengthening Peace among Nations”.

The singer showed his first public concert consisting of black folk songs in New York, in April 1925, and on that day, according to the press, “in the world of American art, a new star has risen”.

Paul Robeson knew 20 languages, of which he spoke 12 fluently. In his repertoire there were songs of peoples of different countries including the USSR. Visiting the Soviet Union for the first time in 1934, the singer was greatly impressed and said: “From the moment of my appearance in Russia, I realized that I had found what I had been striving for all my life”.

The journal “Krugozor” in 1964, noted: “Who heard Paul Robeson at least once, will not forget his voice. We know very well this big man with the eyes of a sage and the smile of a child, a great singer and courageous citizen…”

The repertoire of the singer had many Russian folk and Soviet songs, he knew very well Russian symphonic and opera music.

In 1949, on one of his visits to the USSR, Robeson for the first time performed a fragment of the opera “The Quiet Don” by I.Dzerzhinsky after the title novel by M.A.Sholokhov. This performance is shown in the documentary “Mikhail Sholokhov” (the film director is L.Kristi, the authors of the scenario are L.Kristi and L.Mazrukho; Central Documentary Studio, 1975), which is part of the collection of the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve.

Larisa Bukina