Valentina Semyonova Serova (maiden name Bergman) (1846 – June 26, 1924) was a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

of German-Jewish descent. Her family had converted to Lutheranism before she was born.

Early life

Serova's parents were merchants who operated a shop that specialized in colonial wares. She studied briefly at the

St. Petersburg Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory () (formerly known as the Petrograd Conservatory and Leningrad Conservatory) is a school of music in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members ...

with

Anton Rubinstein Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was the elder brother of Nikolai Rubinstein, who founded the Moscow Conservatory. As a pianist, Rubinstein ran ...

but left to study with the composer and critic

Alexander Serov Alexander Nikolayevich Serov (, – ) was a Russian composer and music critic. He is notable as one of the most important music critics in Russia during the 1850s and 1860s and as the most significant Russian composer in the period betwee ...

, known both for his writings and his successful first opera ''

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

''. Introduced through a shared friend, she married Serov in 1863 and in January 1865 their son

Valentin Serov Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (; – 5 December 1911) was a Russian painter and one of the premier portrait artists of his era. Life and work Youth and education Serov was born in Saint Petersburg, son of the Russian composer and music crit ...

was born. Valentin would grow up to become a famous painter, renowned for his portraits.

''The Power of the Fiend''

Alexander Serov died of a heart attack in January 1871, and Valentina completed the last act of his third and final opera, '' The Power of the Fiend''. She used his sketches and her memory of what Alexander had played to her to finish the work. The composer N.F. Solovyov helped her with some of the instrumentation and editing. The opera premiered in April 1871. Initially unsuccessful, its revivals fared rather better and was the only opera by Serov to be performed in Soviet times.

Second marriage

After Serov's death she married a second time to a physician, Vasilii Nemchinov, who died in 1881. They had two children; a son who died in childhood and a daughter, Nadezhda, who married into the aristocratic Zhilinsky family. Serova's son-in-law and grandson from Nadezhda's marriage were both executed during Stalin's rule. One of her great-grandsons perished in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

; the other was the painter Dmitry Zhilinsky.

Composer

The experience of finishing her first husband's opera inspired Serova to compose her own operas. Her first opera, ''Uriel Acosta'', premiered in 1885 at the

Bolshoi Theatre The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈat(ə)r, t=Grand Theater) is a historic opera house in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové. Before the October Revolutio ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. She had shown the score to

Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...

earlier that year, and he had pointed out a number of faults. Valentina asked him if he would give her some lessons in harmony, but he recommended she seek out the guidance of

Anton Arensky Anton Stepanovich Arensky (; – ) was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music. Biography Arensky was born into an affluent, music-loving family in Novgorod, Russia. He was musically precocious and ha ...

instead. Her second opera, ''Maria d'Orval'', was never performed and is considered lost. Her third opera, ''Il'ya Muromets'', was successfully staged in Moscow with

Feodor Chaliapin Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, ˈfʲɵdər ɨˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn}; 12 April 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass voic ...

in the title role in 1899. Serova's fourth and last opera has not been preserved and even the title is now unknown. She died in

on June 26, 1924.

Relatives

Valentina Serova's sister, Adelaida, and brother-in-law, Yakov Simonovich, were early childhood pedagogues who, in 1863, founded Russia's first kindergarten. Her son, Valentin, married their adopted daughter, Olga Trubnikova, and had five children with descendants now living in Russia, France, Cyprus, and Lebanon.

References

Sources

www.classical-composers.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serova, Valentina Russian opera composers Russian women classical composers Russian Jews 1846 births 1924 deaths Russian people of German-Jewish descent Women opera composers