Evgeny Belyaev

Evgeny Mikhailovich Belyaev, also written as Yevgeny Belyayev (Russian: Евгений Михайлович Беля́ев) (Klintsy, 11 September 1926 – 21/22 February 1994), was a Russian tenor soloist of the Alexandrov Ensemble under Boris Alexandrov.

He is remembered in the Soviet Union as the Russian Nightingale and in the West as one of the definitive singers of Kalinka.

On 11 September 1926, he was born in Klintsy in the Bryansk Oblast.

As a child, he was known by the diminutive, Zhenia (the soft "g" of Bryansk).

As a schoolboy he won a singing competition at the Artek (camp) (Young Pioneer camp) near the Black Sea.

During World War II he served in the subdivision of zenith troops and gained the Army Olympiad Prize.

He fought in Czechoslovakia and served as a Lance Corporal in the first Red Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov division of the Carpathian Military District of the 4th Ukrainian Front under the command of General-Colonel Andrei Yeremenko.

He is also said to have been in an anti-aircraft warfare unit and to have finished the war as a sergeant.

He is said to have sung in the lulls between the fighting.

1947: He was a soloist of the Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Carpathian military district.

1952: He became a Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

1955: He was a soloist of the Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Soviet Army of Alexandrov (Alexandrov Ensemble).

Under conductor Boris Alexandrov he recorded many songs, and performed all over the world: e.g. Europe, USA, Canada and Japan.

The Ensemble performed music by Soviet composers, and Russian and Ukrainian folk songs.

Kalinka always drew special applause

During his time as soloist with the Ensemble, Belyaev's singing teacher was Yevgeny Kanger, who only trained the leading soloists.

Belyaev himself was already the recipient of popular acclaim after the 1956 London tour, and he had already been called "Mr Kalinka": the obvious natural successor to Nikitin.

1958: Received the title: Honoured Artist of Russia (Meritorious Artist).

1960: Received the title: People's Artist of Russia.

1960s-1970s: When the ensemble visited London, Belyaev was described as the "Russian Nightingale" and "Mr Kalinka", and again "Monsieur Kalinka" in France.

1967: He was made People's Artist of the USSR.

1978: He won the State Prize of the USSR.

1980: He appears to have been associated in some way with Roskontsert (or Roskontserta), the big-band variety orchestra headed by the Russian jazz musician Oleg Lundstrem

Also in this year he sang the voice-over part of the cartoon rabbit in the Russian film,Pif Paf Oi Oi Oi (Russian: Пиф Паф Ой Ой Ой) (possibly Dir. Garri Bardin, 1980).

This animated cartoon dramatizes via opera a Russian nursery rhyme about a hunter shooting a rabbit ("Pif-paf!") which is brought home and found to be still alive ("Oi! Oi!").

Belyaev mainly performed in small chamber concerts in Russia after he left the Ensemble.

At some point he was made Honorary Citizen of Klintsy, his home town.

(NB: The Suvorov and Kutuzov division later became the 93rd Mechanized Brigade (Ukraine)).

He then graduated from Gnessin State Musical College.

He married and had two sons, one of whom was a professional pianist.

1994: In the 1990s he sang with the government musical organization RosKontsert as an independent soloist.

On February 21 or 22, 1994 he died.

Belyaev attended Burdenko Military Hospital in Moscow with heart problems.

He asked the doctors to let him go home for the weekend because there are usually no doctors during the weekend in hospitals, so they agreed.

As soon as he arrived home on Kalininsky Prospekt (now Novy Arbat) in Moscow, he died straight away of a heart attack.

He was buried in Moscow, not far from his fellow soloist Alexei Sergeev, in a section of Novodevichy Cemetery (Russian: Новоде́вичье кла́дбище) affiliated branch located in Kuntsevo District.

This commentary is about a music video featuring Evgeny Belyaev (see screenshot, right): Belyaev sings "Kalinka" on the music video "Soviet Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble".

The first "Mr Kalinka" was Victor Nikitin who was the second tenor (Pyotr Tverdokhlebov was the first) to perform it with the dramatic, overarching and operatic notes which now precede the chorus in every Ensemble soloist's performance of this song.

The origin of this kind of tenor-bravado introduction to a song is in Arab music, and can still be heard in Flamenco cante jondo.

"Kalinka" is a trivial song about a fruit tree, but it lends itself perfectly to this kind of operatic showing-off.