Reizen, Mark

Born June 21 (July 3), 1895, in the village of Zaitsevo, in what is now Sinel’nikovo Raion, Dnepropetrovsk Oblast. Soviet Russian singer (bass). People’s Artist of the USSR (1937).

From 1917 to 1921, Reizen studied at the Kharkov Conservatory. In 1921 he became a soloist at the Kharkov Opera Theater. From 1925 to 1930 he was a soloist at the Leningrad Theater of Opera and Ballet and from 1930 to 1954, at the Bol-shoi Theater.

As a singer and actor, Reizen created definitive portrayals of characters in Russian operas. He was at his best as Boris Godu-nov and Dosifei in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina (State Prize of the USSR, 1949 and 1951). Among his many other parts were Susanin and Ruslan in Glinka’s Ivan Susanin and Ruslan and Liudmila, the Miller in Dargo-myzhskii’s The Mermaid, Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust, and Don Basilio in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

Reizen is a subtle interpreter of chamber music. He has performed on tours abroad. He has been awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1941), two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and a number of medals.