page_title: Anastasia Vyaltseva
section_title: Private life
hierarchical_section_title: Anastasia Vyaltseva / Private life
caption_attribution_description: English: Nikolay Iosifovich Choleva, Russian lawyer and philanthropist Русский: Николай Иосифович Холева, русский адвокат и меценат
context_page_description: Anastasia Dmitrievna Vyaltseva was a renowned Russian mezzo-soprano, specializing in Gypsy art songs. Enjoying the cult following and supported by the popular press, she toured regularly and was engaged in numerous operettas, as well as operas, appearing in the Mariyinsky Theatre, as Carmen, Amneris
context_section_description: Steeped in love and adoration, Vyaltseva was, admittedly, an unhappy woman. "I am terribly jealous when I see manifestations of real strong love," she was reported to complain. Her first partner was Nikolai Osipovich Kholeva (1859-1899), an affluent Petersburg barrister. A man of many talents (whose brain was examined after his death in the clinic of Professor Bekhterev, doctors looking for reasons for his intelligence, deemed phenomenal), Kholeva fell in love with a promising singer, sponsored her extensive educational program (involving a stint with professor Marti in Italy) and introduced her to the cultural and musical elite of the capital where her private performances caused furor. Anastasiya, deeply in love with her mentor, moved into his Petersburg flat (Kholeva had a family which lived in Kertch) and spent two years there. Then, having learned of her beloved one's numerous affairs, she rushed out from both the house and the capital, leaving all of his presents behind. She unwillingly returned to the city only after Kholeva's death in 1899.
  In 1904 Vyaltseva became romantically linked with the Saint Petersburg officer Vasily Biskupsky, eight years her younger. After the Russo-Japanese War Colonel Biskupsky, now the head of Tsar Nikolas II's personal security unit, married Vyaltseva, thus violating the unwritten code of conduct. Summoned to the officers' court of honour, he was stripped of all awards and had no choice but to retire from the army, starting a new career as his wife's manager, never losing though, his links with the officer's community (notably, Pavlo Skoropadskyi, his friend, who helped him return to the army as the World War I started). Biskupsky, an antipode to his strict, prudent wife, was causing her much moral suffering. Family scandals and behind the curtain theatre intrigues were the two reasons for Vyaltseva's incessant touring which for her was a form of escapism.
  Vyaltseva loved children and easily developed strong bonds with them; she and six-year-old Vera Taskina, the daughter of Vyaltseva's pianist, became close friends and the singer carried with her Vera's photograph, considering it a lucky token. Vyaltseva adopted a boy, Yevgeny Kovsharov (whom she found, aged two months, in a basket under the bouquet of flowers, after one concert) and did everything to give him good care and education. Yevgeny committed suicide in 1914, two years after his stepmother's death. Vasily Biskupsky outlived his wife by 32 years.
caption: Nikolai Kholeva in 1890
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