Born in Odessa on August 31st, 1934, Pletenko was one of the very few Soviet opera singers that had never
formally studied voice. He started to perform with different amateur troupes. From 1955, he sang professionally in the song-and-dance
ensemble of the Ural military district, from 1956 as a soloist. From 1962 to 1967, he was deployed to a similar ensemble in East Germany,
where he got interested in opera, started visiting theaters – and was advised by a vocal expert from Bulgaria to adopt, for lack of
a better word, a sort of Italian, Caruso-like style of singing.
Back to the USSR, he took part in an audition in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg), and was immediately hired by the local opera house as the
leading lyrical tenor. He made his debut there in 1968, and he was to stay for his entire career. Those who have heard Pletenko's singing
in his first Sverdlovsk years attest that it was absolutely out of this world. He appeared primarily in lyrical roles at that time.
Then he started suffering from problems with his vocal cords, but was able to not only recover, but to mutate into a dramatic tenor. A typical
ensemble singers, he covered a wide range of repertory, from Lenskij to German, from José to Nadir, from the Simpleton to
Otello, no less. In 1980, he was awarded the title of a People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, and received an
invitation from the Bolshoj Theater in Moscow – which he actually turned down!
He died in Ekaterinburg on February 14th, 2005.
Reference for some of the biographical information, and the picture
