Exhibition “Shalyapin. Remembrance of Home”

About exhibition

The exhibition tells the story of the famous opera singer's last St. Petersburg address — the house at 2B Graftio Street, where Shalyapin lived for seven years, from 1914 to 1922, until his departure abroad. In 1975 a branch of the Museum of Theatre and Music Arts was opened on the site of the singer's apartment. Today the building is under restoration, and while the house-museum is closed, its exhibition has been placed in the Museum of the History of Saint Petersburg. Installations based on fragments of interiors revive memories from different years about the house's residents and guests, and visits by their descendants. The displays include archival documents from the Theatre Museum's collections, personal items, photographs, paintings and pieces of furniture from the opera singer's apartment. Among the museum's exhibits are works by Konstantin Korovin, Boris Kustodiev, Vasily Shukhaev and Mikhail Nesterov, as well as gifts to the singer from Maxim Gorky, Maria Savina and Jean Cocteau. An audio play accompanying the exhibition route helps immerse visitors in the atmosphere of the era. It recounts a single day in the life of Fyodor Shalyapin and his circle. The characters in the audio play include Fyodor Ivanovich himself, his second wife Maria Petzold, the secretary Isai Dvorishchin — thanks to whom the appearance of Shalyapin's Graftio Street apartment was preserved — and the artist and friend of the singer, Konstantin Korovin.