Modest Menzinsky – Ukranian Operatic Tenor

Born: 1875
Died: 1935
Ukranian Tenor.

Modest Menzinski was a Ukrainian tenor born in 1875. He studied under Julius Stockhausen at Frankfurt from 1899 to 1903.
After appearances at Frankfurt, he visited Stockholm and was so much admired that he was offered a contract as leading tenor at the Royal Opera, where he remained from 1904 to 1910, Joseph Hyslop’s predecessor in fact.

Equally at home in German and Italian opera, he was from 1910 to 1926 leading tenor at the Cologne Opera and guested all over Europe, appearing at Covent Garden and in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen and Italy.
He was heard for the last time on Stockholm radio a few days before his 59th birthday in April 1934 and died in Stockholm the following year.

He recorded a crash programme of 47 items for the Gramophone Company during 1910-1911 and never appeared in the recording studio again. Two pathways are also thought to exist. Menzinski was particularly associated with the songs of Michael Lysenko, 1842-1912, known as the father of Ukrainian music and was the first singer to introduce his songs to the West.

So after an aria from Wagner’s early opera Renzi, we shall hear Eilishenko’s arrangement – Oinashiveti Mishyashenko.