SALOMEA KRUSHNELNYTSKA
167 pp in Ukranian
ISBN 978-966-2154-26-9
A priori publisher 2009
Apriori_@ukr.net
(all photos courtesy Charles Mintzer archive)
In 1979 Mikhaila Golovashenko published a two volume set on this marvellous singer. It was an important work but now hard to find yet this new edition proves a more than worthy successor or alternative and can't be recommended enough.
The lavish coffee-table photo book (9x13 inches; 23x33cms) was published in the Ukraine in 2009, but has only recently come to light in the West. This limited edition is absolutely stunning in quality and destined to be a collector’s item. And you no more have to be able to read Cyrillic to understand the scope of this artist’s career than you have to be able to read Swedish to appreciate the great Jussi Bjoerling book, so recently reviewed on this website. And Krusceniski is a towering figure in opera history, if for nothing else than her creation at Brescia of the revised Madama Butterfly after the Scala fiasco three months earlier. The accompanying CD has some of her early acoustic recordings and some of the 1928 electricals made during her concert tour of the United States that year, recordings treasured by hard-core 78 collectors. Unlike recent opera biographies this book does not have a chronology, but the book is organized around the leading theatres in which she sang and from the rare photos lavishly presented one can grasp the enormity and quality of her career. Charles Jahant’s career card on her is appended to this review and the list of her roles and theatres speaks for itself.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT CHARLES JAHANT
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT HER AND SEE PHOTOS OF HER GRAVE AND MUSEUM
(as Valentine)