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THE WORLD-FAMOUS ORIGINAL
Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff
Alexey Andreev
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Alexey Nikolaevich Andreev (Aleksejs Andrejevs, Àëåêñåé Íèêîëàåâè÷ Àíäðååâ) (born August 15, 1905, passed away November 3, 1949) was a Latvian football player and singer (tenor with beautiful timbre) of Russian origin. In 1939 he joined Sergej Jaroff's Don Cossack Choir and went with him to the USA, from which he did not return, but stayed there for a permanent life. He died in the United States in 1949, buried on Long Island.
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Alexey Andreev (August 15, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia - 1949, USA) – opera singer, tenor.
Alexey was 16 years old when he came to Riga with his mother, opera singer and vocal arts teacher, Anna Zherebtsova-Andreeva. He had the gift to easily get along with people, was fond of different types of activities, and therefore quickly enough found himself a variety of activities. One of his youthful hobbies was football, he began to seriously engage in it and even for some time, according to the stories of his relatives, played in matches for the national football team of Latvia. After some time, he decided to find himself a more or less solid job, not related to sports, and easily got a job as a clerk at the American Embassy in Latvia. In this he was helped by an excellent gymnasium education, knowledge of English, German and native Russian. In addition, in Riga, Alexey quickly and tolerably mastered the Latvian language. But he did not work for long at the embassy. Scattered mentions in the correspondence of his relatives about some kind of conflict do not make it possible to reconstructing the picture of events.
Alexey was a musically gifted person. He, like his father, an officer of the navy of the Russian army, who later became an opera singer, Nikolai Ershov, had a beautiful timbre voice (tenor). Alexey studied singing with his mother, and repeatedly performed in concerts of students of her studio. When he was almost 30 years old, Alexey became passionately interested in musical theater. By that time, he already had a solid vocal repertoire, and therefore decided to try his hands at opera. In 1936, Alexey was admitted to the troupe of the Liepaja Opera House. He worked there for no more than two seasons, but managed to perform several serious roles - they were the main party in the C. Gounod's opera «Faust», Mario Cavaradossi in G. Puccini's «Tosca» and the Prince in A. Dargomyzhsky's opera «Mermaid». In the later one Riga's audience had a chance hear him: in May 1937 the Liepaja Opera House toured Riga. In parallel with his work in the theater, Alexey also performed with recitals in different cities of Latvia, as well as in the Riga's Radiophone.
Alexey left the opera stage in 1939. This was due to the fact that he accepted the offer of the head of the Don Cossack Chorus Serge Jaroff to become a soloist of this group. Together with this choir Alexei Andreev in September 1939 shipped to the United States. There Alexey Andreev settled down permanently. He married violinist and singer Zonia Porter, who gave birth to his daughter Catherine. In 1943, during the Second World War, Alexejs Alexei was drafted into the American army, but apparently he had not had to fight. After the war, he began working as a sales agent for various American companies and never returned to the art of singing. Unfortunately, his life was not too long, he died only five years later after the
death of his beloved mother, Anna Zherebtsova-Andreeva.
Marina Mihaileca
Courtesy of «Russians of Latvia» website http://www.russkije.lv
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