Nikolay and Medea Figner
They created the main tenor and soprano roles in two operas by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – The Queen of Spades and Iolanta – and appeared in a number of other important Russian musical premieres.
He joined the Russian Navy as a midshipman, and rose to the rank of lieutenant, retiring in 1881 to study voice with Vassily Samus, I. P. Pryanishnikova and Camille Everardi at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
[3] On 4 November 1886, in Turin, he sang the principal tenor role in the world premiere of the revised version of Alfredo Catalani's Edmea;[4] this was also the occasion of Arturo Toscanini's first appearance as a conductor in Italy after his initial triumph in South America.
He also happened to appear on stage with Medea Mei in a production of Donizetti's La favorite; they formed a liaison, and he brought her back to Russia in 1887.
She sang the mezzo-soprano role in Verdi's Requiem at the young age of 16, and made her operatic debut soon afterwards, as Azucena in Il trovatore, at Sinalunga.
Her repertoire then included Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, Amneris in Aida, Gertrude in Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, Leonora in Donizetti's La favorite, and the title role in Bizet's Carmen.
[7] Medea went to Russia with Nikolay Figner in 1887, making her debut there on 8 May at the St Petersburg Imperial Opera (the Mariinsky Theatre) as Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots.
[11] In 1891, when she was unable to continue to appear in The Queen of Spades due to her condition, Nikolay refused to sing with a substitute soprano, and so the opera was removed from the program until Medea was able to return.
[2][7] Other operas in which the Figners performed as a team included: Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (Nikolay's Lensky was said to have been surpassed only by Leonid Sobinov's interpretation) and The Oprichnik;[1] Verdi's Aida, La traviata and Otello (singing in the latter work's 1889 Russian premiere);[15] Gounod's Faust and Roméo et Juliette; Auber's Fra Diavolo; and the Russian premieres of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, Puccini's Tosca[16] and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
It has been suggested that the reason for this gap in their repertoire was personal: they had asked Rimsky-Korsakov to write an opera for them, or to make some changes to his existing work May Night, but the composer apparently refused to oblige and this may have offended the Figners.
[7] She also made discs of "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca and arias from Werther and Carmen, as well as recording a number of songs, including "Penso" by Paolo Tosti.
He was already past his vocal prime when he and his wife cut their first series of 78-rpm records in St Petersburg in 1901–02 for EMI's predecessor, the Gramophone & Typewriter Company.
The Danish journalist Knut de Hageman-Lindenkrone conducted a long recorded interview with Medea Mei at her Parisian apartment in 1949, when the singer was 90 years old.
