From Ukraine to New York, No Falsetto Moves

NEW YORK -- A great Verdi baritone has emerged. But he does not come from Verdi's homeland of Italy. The Russian singer Vladimir Chernov is now in demand at the world's leading opera houses.


He has chosen to settle near the Metropolitan Opera, singing important baritone roles by Verdi and in other 19th-century grand operas. This season he is singing the title role in "Simon Boccanegra."


After Chernov sang Stankar, the heroine's vindictive father, in "Stiffelio" at the Met last season, Opera News wrote: "Chernov now stands poised to dominate the Verdi baritone literature at the Metropolitan Opera. The hefty, swaggering attack, Italianate color and idiomatic diction of Chernov's singing make him a natural for the core baritone roles of 19th-century grand opera."


Critic Alan Blyth compares Chernov's voice with the Italian baritone Pasquale Lamato, who died in 1942. Blyth wrote, "Chernov's voice is dark in color, vibrant and ringing, with not a trace of strain from top to bottom."


Chernov, who was a member of the Kirov Opera when he left for the West, studied singing in Italy as well as in Russia.


"I am not a typical Slavic voice," he says. "In the operatic world we have the Italian style as the perfect idea. Each year I'm getting closer and closer to Italian style. This I know."


Before he became an opera singer, Chernov studied furniture design. When he began to study singing, his teacher guided him first into art songs.


Now, making and repairing furniture is his hobby. One wall of his living room is hung with antique furniture-making tools.


Chernov still wants to sing art songs and has been suggesting them to record companies. All they want is opera. He already has recorded "Luisa Miller," "Il Trovatore," "Don Carlo" and "Rigoletto."


Chernov, who was born in a village in Ukraine and trained in Moscow, left Russia in 1991.


He lives near Lincoln Center -- together with his wife, Olga, their son Vovik, now 9, and his wife's mother -- in an apartment with big pieces of German furniture, reproductions of Renaissance pieces. Chernov says that at 39, he is getting too old for it to look like a student's dwelling. Lovebirds singing in Vovik's room can be heard throughout the apartment.


Chernov says: "We are in New York because of the Met and school for my son. He is in fourth grade at the Ethical Culture School."


Adjustment was not easy. "We are talking about life. It was hard for us to start a new life here," he says. "We left everything in Russia."


They left, he says, because he did not sing often at the Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg. Now, he says, "I have absolutely my future booked."


Chernov's American debut was in 1989, after Sarah Caldwell of the Opera Company of Boston ran into him at Russia's biggest concert agency office and asked him to sing "La Boheme."


Chernov was amazed, since she had not yet heard him, so he took her along with him to an art song rehearsal. He recalls that after three songs Caldwell said, "Mr. Chernov, we'll meet in Boston in May."


A Boston pianist convinced him to audition for the Metropolitan Opera and Columbia Artists Management. Both signed him.


Since then, he has made debuts in Los Angeles, Seattle, Glasgow, Rome, London, New York, Mexico City, Stuttgart, Vienna, San Francisco, Chicago, Salzburg, Berlin, Munich, Paris and Milan. And everyone wants him back.


Chernov says: "I left Russia but I did not leave Russia. We have Russian passports. Our dream is to live in Russia. We are absolutely happy [in New York]. But very often every member of my family is thinking about Russia."


Now, "Physically I am here. I'm at the Met a maximum of three months. Mostly I am everywhere, singing. I do a solo recital in Moscow in May, followed by one in London."


One of his favorite compliments came in Italy when, after an opera, a woman asked his nationality. Chernov said he was Russian, and the woman was taken aback: "I would never believe people. I thought you were Italian."


He counts his serious involvement with Verdi from "La Forza del Destino" in Glasgow, Scotland, in December 1989. "It was a good place, a small house, with a good orchestra," he says. "After that I continued to sing Verdi and now I have many offers to sing Verdi.


"I cannot convince anybody here to let me sing solo recitals. I consider myself in chamber music to be much more interesting and deeper than in opera. The Russian public loves solo recitals and chamber music. Concert halls are full."


But art songs do not sell as well in the United States, so he acquiesces. At the Kirov Opera -- which is again known by its prerevolutionary name, the Mariinsky -- Chernov had a teacher who taught acting, which he considers almost as important as vocal technique.


Verdi created strong characters and went deep into their inner lives, he says, adding, "I try always to create a very real situation on stage."


And Verdi's baritones have a high range, Chernov says: "Sometimes it's like a dramatic tenor. With age, a voice becomes deeper and the color is more round. I hope I am still a lyric baritone. I try to keep my voice lyric."