Galina Vishnevskaya

Galina Vishnevskaya was born on October 25, 1926, in Leningrad. Having miraculously survived the harrowing 872-day Nazi Siege of Leningrad as a teenager, she made her professional debut in 1944. In 1952, after winning a nationwide competition, she joined the prestigious Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, rapidly ascending to become its undisputed reigning prima donna, renowned for roles like Tatyana in 'Eugene Onegin', Natasha Rostova in 'War and Peace', and 'Aida'.

In 1955, she married the legendary virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, forming one of classical music’s most celebrated artistic partnerships. Leading composers wrote directly for her voice: Dmitri Shostakovich composed his 'Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok' for her, and Benjamin Britten wrote the soprano part of his immortal 'War Requiem' (1962) specifically for Vishnevskaya.

Vishnevskaya was equally heroic in moral courage. In the late 1960s, she and Rostropovich sheltered dissident novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at their dacha when he was persecuted by the KGB. For their open letters defending freedom of speech, the Soviet regime revoked their citizenship and forced them into exile in 1974. Returning in triumph to Russia in 1990 after their citizenship was restored, she founded the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre in Moscow. She was decorated as a Commander of the French Legion of Honour and awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland.