In 1895, the Imperial Theaters directed young opera singer Fyodor Chaliapin to the St. Petersburg Opera Company. On the Mariinsky Theater stage, the novice performed parts in Ruslan and Lyudmila and in Mephistopheles for Charles Gounod’s Faust. He also appeared in Domenico Cimarosa’s comic opera The Secret Marriage, but his ability to depict multiple roles did not win universal approval. Contemporaries recalled that during the 1895-1896 season, Chaliapin “performed rarely, and often in roles that did not fit him.”
Savva Mamontov, a railway entrepreneur and philanthropist, saw in Chaliapin a rare gift and temperament on the stage of the Panaevsky Theater in St. Petersburg. He urged the young singer to join the Private Russian Opera troupe.
“Weakly developed uppers. Let him get used to the stage for about two years,” advised the patron about shaping Chaliapin’s early training.
In 1896, Mamontov invited the artist to performances held during an exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. The locals welcomed the unknown talent with cautious curiosity. The Volgar newspaper noted that “sometimes a cheeky young man wanders around the stage muttering to himself.”
“Among the players, we will note Mr. Chaliapin, whose wide bass range sounds pleasing, though not always strong in dramatic moments. The artist does not perform poorly, though there is room to shed pomp and pretension,” the paper remarked.
Recognizing Chaliapin’s potential, Mamontov hired an accompanist who taught the singer proper breathing and articulation. The patron urged the artist to begin each day with vocal exercises and rehearsed scenes with her. Meanwhile, Chaliapin’s contract with the Mariinsky Theater remained valid, and he had to return to St. Petersburg. Yet Mamontov did not want to share the artist and paid a heavy fine to the imperial theaters. Later, Chaliapin recalled the contrast between St. Petersburg stages and Mamontov’s company.
“I immediately felt the difference between the luxurious, official stage with its grand sarcophagi and this softer green space filled with simple fragrant flowers. No officials hovered nearby, no one poked fingers or furrowed brows at the stage,” Chaliapin wrote about the experience.
The benefactor declared, “Fedenka, you can do whatever you want in this theater. If you need to stage an opera, we will stage it for you.” The singer had long dreamed of playing Ivan the Terrible, and he finally earned the role in the first season of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Maid of Pskov. He also performed The Wanderer in Rogneda and Vyazminsky in the Oprichnik during his first year with Mamontov’s company, among other parts.
In October 1897, Mamontov hired 24-year-old Sergei Rachmaninoff as second conductor. He collaborated with the Mammoth Theater for one season and also mentored artists over the summer to shape the next season’s repertoire.
Rachmaninoff showed keen interest in Chaliapin and helped arrange the score for Judith, Mozart and Salieri, and Boris Godunov. Their joint premiere occurred in the fall of 1898. Musicologist Vera Rossikhina later observed that “Rachmaninoff advanced Chaliapin’s musical stage development to a level of professional maturity.”
Chaliapin studied for four years with the Private Opera, honing his craft, gaining experience, and widening his popularity. He appeared in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko (The Varangian Guest) and in Mozart and Salieri (Salieri), as well as Dargomyzhsky’s Mermaid (Melnik), Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin) and Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina (Dosifey). The breadth of these performances contributed to the emergence of a true operatic voice that would later redefine Russian singing, and scholars note his evolution across multiple Moscow and St. Petersburg stages. (Vera Rossikhina; additional contemporary assessments)
By 1899, Chaliapin left Mamontov’s troupe. The philanthropist had come to believe the singer had outgrown the private company, even as rumors swirled about negotiations with Vladimir Telyakovsky, the Moscow Imperial Theaters chief, and Chaliapin. The move marked a turning point in Chaliapin’s career.
The singer signed with the Bolshoi Theatre after a banquet in the Slavyansky Bazaar restaurant, an event arranged by Telyakovsky. Mamontov saw it as a rebuke, and soon Konstantin Korovin left the troupe. With the Bolshoi, Chaliapin’s creative flowering accelerated: his performances drew wide acclaim, and appearances at the Mariinsky Theater took on mythic status. In 1901, he performed ten times at La Scala in Milan, cementing his international reputation.
In September 1899, Mamontov faced financial trouble and was imprisoned in Taganka for embezzlement of railway funds. The theater operated during the 1899-1900 season as the Russian Private Opera Society and persisted until 1904, supported in part by contributions from the artists themselves. The summer of 1900 saw Fyodor Plevako, a renowned lawyer, defend Mamontov in court, and Mamontov was acquitted. The blow, however, left him gravely affected. Korovin later noted that Chaliapin avoided Mamontov during this bleak period, and Mamontov recalled that the singer did not visit him while he was under house arrest. Serov, reflecting later, commented that “there was not enough heart” at that time. Before his death, Mamontov reportedly asked that Chaliapin not attend his funeral. Yet Chaliapin would later write that his fame owed much to Mamontov and that he would remain grateful for life for the patron’s pivotal role in his early career. (Korovin; Serov; Chaliapin biographies)