13 Facts About Oda Slobodskaya

Oda Slobodskaya was a Russian soprano who became a British citizen.

Oda Slobodskaya won a scholarship for secondary education but, having completed her schooling, to her displeasure, found herself working with her parents in a secondhand clothes shop.

Oda Slobodskaya sang with the company for the next five years and performed many of the principal soprano parts of the Russian repertory as well as Sieglinde, Marguerite in Faust, Elisabeth de Valois, and Aida.

But, as a displaced Russian living abroad when appreciation of the Russian repertoire was minimal, Oda Slobodskaya had difficulty finding a good manager.

Oda Slobodskaya remained in the USA for nearly seven years.

Oda Slobodskaya re-established her classical career, appearing at the Lyceum with Chaliapin as Natasha in Alexander Dargomizhsky's Rusalka.

Oda Slobodskaya again sang Fevroniya, in Italian, at La Scala, Milan in 1933, and sang Palmyra in Thomas Beecham's production of Frederick Delius's Koanga at Covent Garden in 1935.

Oda Slobodskaya rekindled her concert career with some highly acclaimed recitals in the Wigmore Hall.

Oda Slobodskaya had a voice of immense purity, steadiness, agility and expressiveness with an almost incandescent quality above the stave.

Oda Slobodskaya retained her vocal and interpretative powers to an advanced age.

Oda Slobodskaya had a rich, strongly accented speaking voice and a characterful turn of phrase, and liked to give spoken introductions to her songs.

Oda Slobodskaya was a much admired Professor of Singing at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, where her pupils included sopranos Patricia Reakes and Yvonne Fuller and contraltos Anne Collins and Annette Thompson, and, until her very last year, continued to give recitals of Russian song.

Oda Slobodskaya died in London, aged 81, on 30 July 1970.