Feodor Chaliapin House-Museum, Biographical museum in Presnensky District, Russia.
The Feodor Chaliapin House-Museum is a residential museum housed in a historic building in Moscow's Presnensky District. It displays furniture, personal belongings, photographs, stage costumes, and set designs from his opera career and everyday life.
Chaliapin bought the estate in May 1910; the late-18th-century house had survived the 1812 fire but was in poor condition and was renovated in European style under his wife Iola Tornaghi. Guests included Gorky, Kuprin, Yermolova, Golovin, Serov, Korovin and Rubinstein. After communal flats, the museum opened on 23 September 1988; a sculpture by Vadim Tserkovnikov was placed nearby in 2003.
The house features a recreation of Chaliapin's dressing room from the Mariinsky Theatre, letting visitors see how he prepared for his performances. Concerts held in the ground floor hall keep the musical traditions he championed still alive today.
The museum occupies an 18th-century manor at Novinsky Boulevard 25, in the Presnensky District. Since 2023 it has been closed for repair and restoration, and the museum's website gives conflicting reopening dates of 2024 or 2025. A monument to Chaliapin by sculptor Vadim Tserkovnikov stands next to the house.
The museum's best-known item is Boris Kustodiyev's portrait of Chaliapin, given to the Museum of Theatre and Musical Art in 1968 by the singer's daughters Marfa and Marina. It hangs in the Moscow house where Chaliapin lived from 1910 to 1922, and the building itself survived the 1812 fire.
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