Ozerov, Nikolai

Ozerov, Nikolai Nikolaevich 

Born Apr 3 (15), 1887, in the village of Spas-Uteshen’e, now within the city limits of Riazan’; died Dec. 4, 1953, in Moscow. Soviet Russian dramatic tenor. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1937).

Ozerov studied voice at the Kazan School of Music. In Moscow he took voice lessons from A. M. Uspenskii and studied opera at the Russian Society of Music from 1909 to 1913. A singer in various theaters beginning in 1912, he was a soloist at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR from 1920 to 1946. Ozerov was a gifted and sensitive singer and actor. His best roles included the title role in Sadko and Grishka Kuter’ma in The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniia, both by Rimsky-Korsakov; the title role in Otello and Radames in Aida, both by Verdi; and German in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. Ozerov was also a concert soloist. Beginning in 1947 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory, becoming a professor in 1948.

Ozerov was the author of Operas and Singers (1964). He was awarded two orders and several medals.

REFERENCE

Sletov, V. N. N. Ozerov. Moscow-Leningrad, 1951.