Yuliya Platonova
also Yuliya Fyodorovna Platonova, Yuliya Garder, Julia Platonova, Юлия Фёдоровна Платонова
Birthplace: Riga, Governorate of Livonia, or Mitau, Governorate of Courland (now Jelgava, Latvia), Russian Empire
A soprano of the Imperial Theatres, and the singer who got Boris Godunov on to the stage. Born Yuliya Garder, she studied in the Baltic provinces and in St Petersburg, and made her Mariinsky debut in 1863 as Antonida in Glinka's A Life for the Tsar. In thirteen years at the house she sang more than fifty roles, creating several for Cui, Dargomïzhsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Serov. When the Imperial Theatres committee refused Musorgsky's opera, she claimed it for her own benefit night, and created Marina Mniszek at that 1874 premiere. She retired in 1876 and taught in St Petersburg.
Creations
- Marina Mniszek — Boris Godunov (St Petersburg, 1874)
Written from
- Wikipedia (2026) Yuliya Platonova. (Accessed: August 2026). The English article.
- Wikipedia (2026) Платонова, Юлия Фёдоровна. (Accessed: August 2026). The Russian article.
- Semeonoff, B. (1992) 'Platonova [Garder], Yuliya [Julia] Fyodorovna', in Sadie, S. (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London: Macmillan Reference, vol. 3, p. 1032.
- Kutsch, K.J. and Riemens, L. (1987) 'Platonowa, Julia Fedorowna', in Großes Sängerlexikon. Bern and Stuttgart: Francke, vol. 2, col. 2324.
- Yastrebtsev, E. (1910) 'Платонова, Юлия Федоровна', in Русский биографический словарь. St Petersburg: Imperial Russian Historical Society, vol. 14, pp. 36-37. (Accessed: 14 October 2026).