"Ongaku-no-Tomo" April 2004 issue

 

Q: Is this your second time to Japan?

 

D: No, it is my third visit.

(※ The 1st time: In Sapporo with PMF,  The second: NHK Studio in Tokyo. )

 

Q: There are so many Japanese fans who want to know about Maestro in various ways. Could you tell us about your childhood?

 

D: My parents were always busy working, so I spent time with my grandmother almost.  My father is a chemical engineer and an excellent amateur vocalist. My mother also has a beautiful voice, in that sense I can say that I am from the music family.  Therefore, I have always been raised listening to classical music, singing and playing the piano.  My grandmother taught me folk songs too.  At the age of 7, I was taken to the music school to learn playing the piano. (laugh)

 

Q: It was your parents' favor?

 

D: Yes.  While I was in the primarily school, I also attended my first music school for seven years, so I was very busy at the time. Actually I wanted to play football outside. (lol) After graduating from the primarily school at age 15 or 16, I continued my music studies at the chorus school.  I was serving as an accompanist, and led the chorus too.  Because I'd continued my singing in good amount, my recovery from voice change was relatively easy, and at the age of 16 I started learning vocal intensively.

 

Q: Did you have a dream of being a singer then?

 

D: Since I began to study singing seriously, I envisioned myself singing on the stage.

 

Q: When you were a teenager, did you say you were in love with rock music?

 

D: For two years before joining the music university, I was active in the rock group. Of course it was a hobby.  In that Soviet period, rock was forbidden, so it was my resistance against it. (laugh)  In addition, it was a good opportunity to be a popular boy for girls. Perhaps it was the main reason to join the rock group. (laugh)

 

Q: How did you get rock music at that time?

 

 

D: How did you get rock music? It might be from television, radio and newspaper.  The information leaked only slightly, which was not enough, but we were the same. I was getting it while listening to the music coming to my ear with the guitar or the piano, and I was surprised that some young peers can play it right after listened to it.  That was a trick I can not do.   Later, my voice got matured and I started focusing on legitimate voice training, then I quit rock.

 

Q: What is your debut as an opera singer?

 

D: It was Krasnoyarsk Opera House in 1985. I was still a student, but specifically invited.  Since then, I had worked as a member of the opera house, and sang the role of Onegin at the age of 23. Germont, Falstaff etc.  After graduating from music university, I participated in four competitions and won everything. Then, my professional singer career began.

 

Q: How about singing in front of the audience at the time of your debut?

 

D: I felt the best.  Anyhow, I enjoyed singing, because unlike now there was no fear at all.

 

Q: Did you have confidence that you can do it in the world's premier stages?

 

D: I was confident at my young age.  I was confident enough that I wanted to share it with others.  However now I lost all my confidence.  I did not get nervous in the past, but now I feel nervous.

 

Q: Why is it?

 

D: I used to be young and stupid.  Life taught me a lot of things.  I was beaten with my head a few times. "I am irresponsible, foolish, get smarter!"  And here I am now.  It is very important to be responsible for my performance.

 

Q: I read that it is your dream to sing "Rigoletto" in a certain interview.

 

D: Yes.  I listened to the recordings of various singers, I was deeply impressed, I thought "I want to sing like an Italian singer."   As the technique method, I thought Italian is better than Russian.  I also saw Atlantov and Lisitsian who were considered to be the best Russian singers at that time.  And I noticed that "their singing roots are Italy, not Russia" and decided to learn from Italian singers.

 

Q: You are the generation of the Cold War era, Afghanistan war, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  How did such events effect your life and your music?

 

 

D: I belong to the first generation of the new regime.  It was in 1986 when Gorbachev obtained power.  At that moment, I was still  a newly-fledging as a professional singer.  In 1988 I won the competition at the Toulouse in France.  It was the first time I went to the foreign country, I learned a lot, and felt freedom.  I felt that the winning brought me more opportunities to sing in front of larger audiences and to get more freedom.  One day after I got the Cardiff prize in 1989, my career has began.  I was handed a long list of offers.  Contracts of La Scala, Covent Garden, many other opera houses and concert halls all over the world were tightly packed up to the next five years ahead!  BBC broadcasted my singing on TV through Europe, and various offers came from record companies.  I was lucky anyhow.  I myself understood the meaning of "being free" for the first time from that oppotunity.  After a while, I left my job in Krasnoyarsk Opera House, I became a freelance, I have been a freelance since then.  I do not belong to anyone, anywhere. I am only for myself.  As I am working hard, I am getting rewarded, I am responsible for my life and career, and also supporting my people and my family.  That is my life style.  Without the change of the Soviet Union by Gorbachev's Perestroika, it would not have happened.

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