Boris Belostozky

Boris Belostozky (15 April 1889,* Yekaterinburg, Russian Empire — 10 June 1988, Rockland, New York) was a Russian-American tenor vocalist, opera and cabaret performer, and pedagogue. Settling in the United States in the late 1920s, he had a prolific stage career, combining "cabaret"-style performances at Russian expat restaurants and legitimate opera singing with Opéra Russe à Paris. Since the late 1940s, Belostotskiy has been a professor at the Portland Conservatory of Music and soloist of Serge Jaroff's Don Cossack Chorus. He recorded extensively between 1927 and 1954, appearing on 78 RPM gramophone records on Okeh, Standard (6), Victor, and His Master's Voice, and early LPs on Musical Masterpiece Society, Monitor Records (2), and Polish label Syrena. (* According to several sources, including the US Social Security Death Index, he was born on 1 April 1896.) Name variations: Борис Викентиевич Белостоцкий, Boris Vikentievich Belostotskiy, Belostotzky, Belostotski, Boris Vincent Belostozky. Boris was born to Vikentiy F. Belostozky and Praskovia P. Bashenina and likely studied in Moscow, beginning his career at the Moscow Art Theatre music studio. Belostozky immigrated to the USA in the late 1920s, settling in New York and performing extensively at various expat restaurants and venues, such as The Russian Sadko on West 57th Street (1930 to spring 1931), Café Arbat in Brooklyn (fall 1931 to 1932), Club Petroushka (1932–33), and Maisonette Russe (1935–36). Between 1932 and 1934, Boris Belostotzky sang with the renowned Opéra Russe à Paris company, appearing in Rimsky-Korsakov's "Golden Cockerel" and Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" productions. He also had a cameo role in MGM's 1935 film Anna Karenina, starring Greta Garbo. Boris joined Don Kosaken Chor Serge Jaroff after the group relocated to the USA in the late 1940s.