Mikhail Nikolayevich Savoyarov (Solovyov) was born on 30 November 1876 in Moscow. As a child he didn't receive music education. He learned to play violin without a teacher, also took private lessons. In the end of the 1890s Savoyarov moved to
Saint Petersburg, started working as a violinist in a private
opera house, and then in the
Palace Theatre. The repertoire of these theatres included mostly
operettas, which influenced his style. Savoyarov made his début on stage as an operetta
tenor comedian by chance substituting for an ill actor. He had a success though not grand. Having an independent streak, soon he quit the theatre and started living on his own resources. Since 1905 he was seen playing in musical single-show companies (so called "capellas"),
Russian,
Ukrainian,
Gipsy or pseudo-
French ones which were in fashion and brought profit. It's significant that his style of acting coincides with his last name Savoyarov that comes from French word
savoyard which means a strolling musician, a
troubadour from
Savoy. In 1907 Savoyarov had a success on fair of
Nizhny Novgorod where he performed together with his first wife
Ariadna Azagarina. Earlier she was famous in single-show companies as a French
cabaret singer. Performing as "French-russian
duet" they had a
repertoire that consisted of comic and
satiric scenes including singing, dancing, disguise and impersonations using theatrical
costumes, make-up, mise-en-scènes and even decorations. were reissued and many times and were very popular to quote, and the eccentric scene
"Moon oh moon, are you drunk indeed?" was sung by literally everyone in
Petrograd. Sometimes Blok brought actors who recited his poems and plays onstage. Thus in 1918 he persistently showed Savoyarov’s performances to his wife
L.D. Mendeleyeva-Blok so that she could "adopt" his eccentric manner (for reading "
The Twelve" poem).
Vsevolod Meyerhold also attended Savoyarov’s concerts while working on his play
Balaganchik (‘The
Puppet Show’). According to Blok, Savoyarov’s
Balaganchik was "way better than ours". ::::::::::::::::::::::—
Aleksandr Blok, sketchbooks (20 March 1918). (1915) Blok didn't recite "The Twelve" himself because he couldn't do it well. Usually, his wife performed reading of the poem. However, according to the audience who listened
The Twelve performed by Liubov Dmitriyevna her did it poorly, falling into bad theatricism. A big woman with massive arms bare almost to her shoulders was rushing about on the stage dramatically shouting and gesticulating, sitting down and jumping up again. It seemed to some of the audience that Blok didn’t like listening to Lyubov Dmitriyevna’s reading either. But it was unlikely to be truth because Blok was always advising her and showing how to recite the poem. That’s why he was taking Lyubov Dmitriyevna to Savoyarov’s concerts. Apparently Blok believed
The Twelve poem should be recited in this specific rough and eccentric manner, the way Savoyarov did it playing the role of a criminal from
St. Petersburg. However Blok himself didn’t know and didn’t learn how to recite. To do that he would have to become, as he put it, a
‘variety poet and singer of satirical songs’ himself. Savoyarov didn’t leave it unanswered. Specially for the famous guest of his concerts he wrote a few mock verses imitating
‘with delicate irony’ Blok’s most popular lines or
intonation (for example:
"A night. A street. A lamp. A drugstore" turned into
"A store. A crowd. A low price"). Being aware that Blok is in the audience Savoyarov always performed such satirical songs for him. The live
dialogue between the two poets during the concert delighted the
public. Like Blok, Savoyarov tried to cooperate with the new regime during the first years after the
October Revolution. He headed the
Petrograd variety actors’ union for three years. Then however he was supplanted by ‘real’ proletarian actors. During the 1920s Savoyarov endeavoured to be relevant, referring to new
Soviet themes, he kept on writing and performing. Among the songs performed by his second wife, artiste
Yelena Nikitina (1899–1973) the most successful were the operetta ''Proletarian's song
and a love song parody You're still the same'' where the
decadent intonations of
Vertinsky were derided. Savoyarov continued to give concerts all over the
USSR up until 1930. He was over 50 at that time. His repertoire of that time includes satirical songs "What a thing to happen!" (in
Charleston beat), monologues in «Rayok»
genre (rhymed humorous "talk shows", a special kind of rhymed prose) such as
You say, we’re going to far; I want to love the whole world (1925), musical
feuilleton "Records, big deal!" (1929), a
parody song
Little bricks and other. However Savoyarov couldn't repeat his Petrograd
success of 1915. By the early 1930s, Savoyarov stopped giving concerts. The political situation in the country stood stock-still, socialist associations of creative professions were formed and it became impossible to organize concerts independently. The
Bolshevik Party didn't welcome any eccentric, satirical in particular. In 1933 Savoyarov moved from
Leningrad to Moscow where he lived the rest 7 years of his life. He died
(or was killed?) a month and a half after the
war on Germany started. On 4 August 1941 Mikhail Savoyarov died of
heart rupture during the bombing in the 43 Lesnaya street gateway. He wouldn't hide in the
bombshelter during the
air raids. == Artistic influence ==