Oda Slobodskaya

Oda Slobodskaya (28 November 1888 - 30 July 1970 ) was a Russian born soprano who became a British citizen. Her biographer Maurice Leonard quotes Slobodskaya as having been born on 28 November 1888 in Vilno (now Vilnius) near the Polish border.She won a scholarship for secondary education but, having completed her schooling, to her displeasure, found herself working with her parents in a secondhand clothes shop.Knowing she had a good voice, in 1907 she applied for an audition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.Having no classical repertoire she sang the simple songs she had learned as a chlld.Despite this lack of sophistication, her vocal potential was immediately apparent.The Director, Glazunov, and Natalya Iretskaya (the most important Russian singing tutor and herself a pupil of Pauline Viardot) accepted her and awarded her a scholarship for nine years' study.

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