Михаил Александрович - Mikhail Alexandrovich sings Aria di Paride from Paride ed Elena by C.W.Gluck

The Jewish-Latvian-Soviet tenor Mikhail Alexandrovich (1914-2002) was born in a provincial Latvian town Bērzpils, in a needy Jewish family. At the age of nine, he fulfilled his father’s dream - Misha gave a two-part concert in the famous Das Schwarzhäupterhaus in Riga. The first part consisted of the songs by Schubert, Gounod and Russian composers, the second of Jewish songs. All the local Latvian, German, Russian, and Yiddish newspapers were filled with enthusiastic reviews. Already in 1925, the talented boy took an extensive three-year-long tour in neighboring Lithuania and also in Poland and Germany. Later, after his voice mutation, when the former prodigy was ready to return to concert activities, the rising anti-Semitic sentiments in Latvia made it practically impossible to earn a living by singing. The solution turned out to be a cantor’s position in a synagogue. In 1934, Alexandrovich became the youngest ever obercantor at the Manchester synagogue. However, he wasn’t happy there, the only bright spot in the gray routine was a casual acquaintance with Tito Schipa, who introduced him to Beniamino Gigli and who occasionally gave him free singing lessons in Rome. Alexandrovich took the first possibility of leaving England and accepted the invitation from Kaunas Choral synagogue in Lithuania (it was much closer to his home…) where he stayed from 1937 to 1940. He brought new trends to the rather orthodox Jewish community: in addition to his cantorial ministries, he organized concerts with the orchestra where he sang Lensky, arias from “Tosca”, “Les pêcheurs de perles” and even “La Donna è Mobile” (in the synagogue!). In order to limit the number of listeners, they were selling tickets, the mounted police was on duty, but still the youth threatened to break the iron gates to the synagogue. Alexandrovich also appeared several times in Kaunas opera, in “Eugene Onegin” and “The Barber of Seville”, but it was here where he understood that opera stage was not for him: he was a very short man, did not have a big voice and was absolutely “non-dramatic”.

In 1940, the Soviets occupied the Baltic countries and the cantorship was over. Soon he received an invitation from neighboring Belorussia and a new Soviet life began. It included the WWII years, his incredible popularity after the war (70 vinyl recordings were published) and the most prestigious Stalin Prize. However, his subsequent career as both a Jewish and a popular singer was impeded by anti-Semitism, both in the Stalinist and post-Stalin period. In 1971 Alexandrovich left the USSR for Israel; he later settled in the USA and died in Germany in 2002.