Elena Zaremba

Originally, the fourth act of Glinka's Zhizn za tsarja opened with the great tenor aria Bratsy v metel. Later, Glinka wrote an additional aria for the trouser role Vanja: Bednyj kon v pole pal (My poor horse fell in the field), as a new second scene of act 4. So in the oldest scores of the opera, you'll only find the tenor aria; later on, both scenes were performed. But when the Soviets reworked Zhizn za tsarja to Ivan Susanin (they wouldn't have sacrificed "A life for the tsar"), they cut the tenor aria out, and made Bednyj kon v pole pal the first scene of act 4.

Zaremba started her career at the Bolshoj (1984–92), and then sang on almost all the important stages of the world, Covent Garden, Opéra de Bastille, Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Teatre del Liceu, Madrid, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna, Verona, Rome, Brussels, San Francisco, Tokyo... Vanja was her signature role.

For the aria, cf. also Sinjavskaja.