Galina Visjnevskaja (1926) is a famous Russian opera star. Director Flipse interviews her in her enormous house, where her old opera costumes are displayed as in a museum. With her luxuriant black hair, immaculate clothes and self-assured presence, she is undeniably a diva. Flipse films her at the two schools she founded: a primary school with a music department, where the pupils perform for her, and a training centre for young opera singers, where teacher Galina is not only strict, but also generous with compliments. Old photographs and archive footage illustrate Galina's life story from the siege of Leningrad in World War II, via a fourteen-year banishment from the Soviet Union for supporting the dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, until her return to Moscow in 2000. Her friendship with composers Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten and her marriage to cello player Mstislav Rostropovich are also addressed.
Credits
Director
Producer
Camera
Set geluid
Montage
Production company
Scarabeefilms
NFF Archive
You are now in the NFF Archive. The archive contains contains information on film, TV and interactive productions that were screened at past festival editions. The NFF does not dispose of this material. For this, please contact the producer, distributor or broadcaster. Sometimes, older films can also be found at the Eye Film Museum or the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.