Mariya Klimentova-Muromtseva
Russian soprano and singing teacher (b. 4/16 January 1857 in Kursk; d. 25 January 1946 in Paris), born Mariya Nikolayevna Klimentova (Мария Николаевна Климентова), and known after her marriage as Mariya Nikolayevna Klimentova-Muromtseva (Мария Николаевна Климентова-Муромцева), or Maria Mouromtseva.
After attending school in Voronezh, Mariya studied singing at the Moscow Conservatory, where she was also a student in Tchaikovsky's classes on music theory. In 1880, she graduated and made her debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in the role of Margaret in Gounod's Faust. She remained at the Bolshoi for eight years, and gained a high reputation as a coloratura soprano. During the 1880s she also performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, and toured at the National Theatre in Prague. In 1891 she established a school for singers in Moscow.
Mariya was the first performer of the roles of Tatyana in Yevgeny Onegin in the conservatory students' production of 1879, and of Oksana in Cherevichki at the Bolshoi in 1887, and earned much praise from Tchaikovsky.
Correspondence with Tchaikovsky
13 letters from Tchaikovsky to Mariya Klimentova-Muromtseva have survived, dating from 1885 to 1893, of which those highlighted in bold have been translated into English on this website:
- Letter 2808a – 16/28 November 1885 (?), from Moscow
- Letter 3113a – 27 November/9 December 1886, from Moscow
- Letter 3161 – 26 January/7 February 1887, from Moscow
- Letter 3177a – 10/22 February 1887, from Maydanovo
- Letter 3414a – 21 November/3 December 1887, from Moscow
- Letter 3770 – 13/25 January 1889, from Frolovskoye
- Letter 3876 – 13/25 June 1889, from Frolovskoye
- Letter 3883 – 19 June/1 July 1889, from Frolovskoye
- Letter 4029 – 10/22 February 1890, from Florence
- Letter 4041 – 19 February/3 March 1890, from Florence
- Letter 4537 – 8/20 November 1891, from Moscow
- Letter 4559 – 19 November/1 December 1891, from Maydanovo
- Letter 4885 – 7/19 March 1893, from Moscow
11 letters from Mariya Klimentova-Muromtseva to the composer, dating from around 1887 to 1891, are preserved in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve at Klin (a4, Nos. 1475–1485).
