Yuri Mazurok (b.1931) The Soviet Union had a long-standing reputation as a prime sowing ground for magnificent bass voices. But it was never regarded as a major producer of world-class baritones. There were exceptions, of course: Panteleimon Nortsov, Evgeniy Belov, Pavel Lisitsian, Georg Ots, Andrei Ivanov, and Aleksei Bolshakov, among others, were all outstanding and highly acclaimed artists. In the mid-1960's, another baritone began his climb to international stardom. This was Yuri Mazurok, who first made a splash in the USSR after winning the Prague Spring International Music Competition in the early 1960's, while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory. A few years later, in 1964, he made his Bolshoi Theater debut as Onegin. Eventually, Mazurok sang at most major European houses, as well as in the US. San Francisco first welcomed him in 1977, and eighteen years later he finally appeared at the MET (as Scarpia). Like Lisitsian and Ots, Mazurok did not possess a voice of immense power. While he lacked the soft-hued, very distinctive timbres of his elder colleagues, he scored over them when it came to sheer agility and ease at the top of the range. Indeed Mazurok, with his slightly steely and rather "tenorish" instrument, had no difficulty pumping out gleaming high notes. Among today's baritones, he is closer in sound to the young Chernov rather than the somewhat duskier Hvorostovsky. Despite the relative lightness of voice, Mazurok was successful in a number of Verdi <b>...</b>
Yuri
Mazurok
Ukrainian
baritone
Russian
opera
aria
Mazeppa
Peter
Ilyich
Tchaikovsky
khankonchak
