Nadezhda Obukhova

Obukhova was born in Moscow, and came from an artistic family. Two of her uncles were professional singers, one of whom was the opera director of the Bolshoi Theatre. Her grandfather was a noted pianist, and her great-grandfather Yevgeny Baratynsky was a poet of Pushkin circle. Her family had some wealth, and would often spend summers in Nice, France, where Obukhova received her first singing lessons from Eleanora Lipman. In 1907, she was enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory, where she was instructed by Umberto Masetti. == Career ==

After her graduation, she found work singing in various concerts around Russian Empire, but she did not make her operatic debut until 1916. Her operatic debut was in the role of Pauline in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades at the Bolshoi. She quickly became a popular singer, appearing in a number of other productions including Carmen, Samson and Delilah (opera), ''The Tsar's Bride (as Marfa and as Lyubasha), The Snow Maiden, Der Ring des Nibelungen (as Fricka), Marina (by Emilio Arrieta), The Love for Three Oranges and Sadko''. == References ==