Aleksandra Krutikova

Aleksandra Krutikova was a Russian mezzo-soprano who sang some forty roles across the two imperial opera houses. She grew up in Riga and studied there, in Paris and at the St Petersburg Conservatory under Henriette Nissen-Saloman, making her debut in 1872 as Vanya in A Life for the Tsar. Four years at the Mariinsky Theatre brought her Fyodor in the first Boris Godunov of 1874; she moved to the Bolshoi Theatre in 1880 and created Lyubov in Mazeppa there in 1884. Tchaikovsky dedicated two romances to her. She was married to the baritone Bogomir Korsov and retired in 1901.