Georg Ots

Georg Ots (21 March 1920 – 5 September 1975) was an Estonian baritone who besides opera was known as a performer of popular songs. He was on the roster of the Estonian National Opera from 1951 to his death in 1975. He gained wider recognition with the lead role in the 1958, Soviet musical film Mister X, based on Imre Kalman's operetta Die Zirkusprinzessin. Biography Before studying singing with the Estonian baritone Aleksander Rahnel in Yaroslavl in the rear of the Eastern Front, where a cultural centre for evacuated Estonians had been established, Ots was a young Navy Officer who had escaped a sinking ship and was taken prisoner in Russia. He was released a year later, and on his return home, he auditioned for a place at the conservatory in Tallinn. At the same time, he became a member of the chorus at the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn. His solo opera debut was a small part in Eugene Onegin (1944). He soon became one of the most revered singers in Estonia and Finland and was also admired and beloved across Russia. Ots often performed in many major opera houses of the former Soviet Union, being especially cherished at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. His repertoire included the roles of Eugene Onegin, Yeletzky, Escamillo, Renato, Don Giovanni, Papageno, Rigoletto, Iago, Porgy, Figaro, and the title role in Kabalevsky's Colas Breugnon. Ots sang in Estonian, Russian, Finnish, German, Italian and French, and was fluent in all six languages. Ots's most famous role, which he is often identified with, was the leading character in Anton Rubinstein's opera The Demon. The libretto of The Demon is based on Mikhail Lermontov's famous epic poem, once banned because of its plotline which involves a misalliance between a dark angel and a Georgian princess. Georg Ots' interpretation of the angel mesmerized audiences and received rapturous reviews, making Lermontov's controversial poem even more famous. The popularity of Ots culminated in 1958 with the release of the Lenfilm Studios musical Soviet film Mister X, based on Imre Kalman's operetta Die Zirkusprinzessin. Ots also played a leading role in Between Three Plagues, a film based on a historical novel by Jaan Kross which illuminates the life of Balthasar Russow, a distinguished Estonian writer and chronicler. Ots loved to perform songs by Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, and several other Russian composers, and was also a devoted interpreter of Estonian folk songs.