Nezhdanova, Antonina

Nezhdanova, Antonina [Нежданова, Антоніна; Neždanova], b 29 July 1873 in Kryva Balka, Akkerman county, Bessarabia gubernia, d 26 June 1950 in Moscow. Opera singer (soprano) of Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish descent. Equally successful as a lyric, dramatic, and coloratura singer, she knew Marko Kropyvnytsky, Panas Saksahansky, and Mariia Zankovetska from their appearances in Odesa. She popularized Ukrainian music in Moscow (from ca 1909), where she worked with the tenor Ivan Alchevsky and bass Mykhailo Donets in their Kobzar ensamble. Nezhdanova recorded for the Gramophone label some items of her Ukrainian repertoire. Her concert repertoire included art songs by Mykola Lysenko, Kropyvnytsky, and Kyrylo Stetsenko; a number of Ukrainian folk songs; fragments from Semen Hulak-Artemovsky’s opera Zaporozhian Cossack beyond the Danube; and operas on Ukrainian themes by Modest Mussorgsky, Peter Tchaikovsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. From the 1920s Nezhdanova appeared in Ukrainian opera theaters in Kharkiv (the Kharkiv Theater of Opera and Ballet), Kyiv (the Kyiv Theater of Opera and Ballet), and Odesa (the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater). The Odesa Conservatory now bears her name.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]