Mariya Kuznetsova (singer)

[2][6] One night, not long after her Mariinsky debut, a dispute erupted in the theater's lobby between students and army officers while Kuznetsova was singing the role of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin.

Before panic ensued, an unfazed Kuznetsova interrupted the performance, and she then quickly calmed the crowd by leading everyone in a rousing rendition of the Russian national anthem God Save The Tsar!.

[6][12][13] With the help of her friend, the artist and designer Léon Bakst, Kuznetsova won the role of Potiphar's wife in Richard Strauss's ballet La Légende de Joseph (or Josephslegende) in 1914.

It was produced by Diaghilev, composed and conducted by Strauss, choreographed by Michel Fokine, designed by Bakst and José Maria Sert, while the lead was danced by Léonide Massine.

To make matters worse, Strauss was in a foul mood because his lover, Ida Rubinstein, who was to have danced Lydia Sokolova's role, had abruptly abandoned the project.

[15] Despite the problems backstage and an outraged British press, who found the work obscene, the ballet successfully debuted in both London and Paris that spring[15] as reported in The New York Times: The most memorable thing about the production was said to be Sert's luxurious Venetian themed sets and Bakst's costumes.

In one memorable performance she joined the celebrated Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in a production of Borodin's Prince Igor, choreographed by Fokine, and staged at Drury Lane on June 8, 1914.

[17] After the Revolution in 1917, Kuznetsova fled Russia,[9] making a suitably dramatic escape dressed as a cabin boy and hidden inside a steamer trunk aboard a ship headed for Sweden.

Later that year, she was engaged at the Gaiété-Lyrique in Paris, singing alongside Lucien Fugère, Maria Barrientos, Lydia Lipkowska, Georgette Leblanc, André Gilly, and Vanni Marcoux.

[18] In 1920, Kuznetsova participated in a large a charity concert at the Paris Opéra along with Vera Karalli and others, to raise funds to aid impoverished fellow Russian émigrés.

In 1927, with the help of the Ukrainian baritone Mikhail Karakash and his wife Elizaveta Popova, and of the Count Alexis Ceretelli, Kuznetsova founded the Opéra Russe à Paris.

[2] Alfred had worked for a time in the Russian Empire, prior to the Revolution, as the president of the Société d'Industrie Minière de Chagali-Heliar, a French copper mining company headquartered in Tbilisi, Georgia.