Coretti Arle-Tietz (1881-1951)
Coretté Elisabeth Hardy was born on Dec. 5th, 1881 (or 1883) in Churchville, New York to Carrie Carter and Thomas J. Hardy. Thomas, migrated north to Brooklyn around 1875 from Petersburg, Virginia. During the summer of 1879, he met and soon married Carrie Carter (another migrant from Richmond, Virginia). In April 1880, while employed as a servant for the Walach family (a German family living in Long Island), Carrie bore him a son. Unfortunately the child didn't survive and the couple traveled north to the township of Churchville, where Carrie bore two children, Coretté (1881) and Anna (born 1884).
Sometime between 1886-1888, the family returned to Manhattan, where eight more children were produced, although Edward (born 1889), Isabella Clara (born 1892), Miles (born 1895) were the only ones to survive childhood. The family resided at 140 West 19th Street in the busy Midtown district, where the young Hardy children played along Seventh Avenue, where carriages, streetcars and pedestrians strolled along between Carnegie Hall and Times Square. Like most African-American families, the Hardy family encountered housing discrimination, only allowed to inhabit tenement apartments with high rents, ragged wallpaper, sparse furnishings, ceilings that scattered plaster onto the floor and a old rusty washtub as indoor plumbing was non-existent in African-American neighborhoods. The tenements were honeycombed with little rooms filled with people, bedrooms open onto air shafts that brought in foul air often carrying germs of disease. By 1895, the family began frequently changing residences, moving from one tenement building to another.
Little is known about Coretté’s school years, despite the fact that they were filled with boredom and bitter disappointment, particularly due to an incident in which a teacher refused to allow her to participate in the spring musical due to her being Negro. In later interviews, she recollected attending the school on 99th and West End Avenue and later the high school on 85th street despite the fact that the Hardy family lived nowhere near either school, especially as those schools didn't exist during her childhood. Upon completing school around 1896 around 15-years old, as the eldest child, Coretté would've immediately been put to work.
Despite claiming in interviews decades later that African-Americans were unable to study music in the United States, not far from where Coretté grew up on 47-49 West 25th Street was the National Conservatory of Music. In 1893, Czech composer and director of the Conservatory, Antonín Dvořăk permitted Negroes to study at the Conservatory free of charge so that America could discover Negro melodies. Even the famous 31-year old Negro composer, violinist and choral director, Will Marion Cook studied at the school in 1894-95. It's unknown why Coretté, didn't attempt to begin her proper musical education in New York despite growing up so closely to a leading American musical institution which allowed blacks. Perhaps her hardshell religious former-slave parents saw Will Marion Cook’s musical productions of Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898) and Policy Players (1900) as decadent and disapproved at the idea of their eldest child pursuing a career in the theater, strutting to the tunes of the cakewalk and singing ‘Darktown is Out To-Night’, despite it being the first all-Negro show on Broadway. Instead, 19-year old Coretté Hardy found employment as a copyist (transcribing documents) and used the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church Choir as her only musical outlet.
Early 1900, relocated to 448 W. 54th Street in the heavily industrialized Hell’s Kitchen district. Every tenement building and shantytown was filled Irish immigrants, whom had fled from Ireland's Great Famine to seek employment on the Hudson river docks or the railroads. Many of those unfortunate enough to reside in this congested poverty-infested neighborhood turned to gang life.
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| Leipzig - Louisiana Amazon Guard (1902) |
However, her luck changed in the Spring of 1901, when Coretté noticed an advertisement in the New York Herald posted by German theatrical impresario, Paula Kohn-Wöellner, seeking seven Negro women with the ability to sing and dance for a concert tour of Germany. Coretté hastily replied to the advert and did well at the audition. Unfortunately, at the last minute Ms. Kohn-Wőellner decided she would only take six of the women abroad with her and Coretté was elected to be left behind as a replacement in case any of the women decided to quit the newly christened “Louisiana Amazon Guard” troupe. On April 17th 1901, after watching the others depart on the SS Deutschland, Coretté remained in New York as a standby performer.
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| Leipzig - Corette Alefred (1902) |
On April 28th 1902, Coretté received her first passport and around June, accompanied by Fannie Smith (from Philadelphia) traveled across the Atlantic to join the
Louisiana Amazon Guard troupe in Europe. While traveling abroad, Corette changed her name to
Corette Alefred, for uknown reasons. For four successful months, the troupe traveled across central Europe, entertaining in Zurich, St. Gallen, Munich and Leipzig. Unfortunately, Ms. Kohn-Wöllner insisted on treating the women as children and financially exploiting them. In October, after a month's engagement in Dresden, the women walked out on their impresario and elected the lead girl, Ollie Burgoyne as the troupe manager. Now as the “
Five Louisianas”, the troupe relocated to Berlin in November, where they performed locally for five more months.
In March 1903, while performing in Dresden at the Victoria Salon, Ollie Burgoyne and Florence Collins rushed to the American Consulate with plans to depart immediately for Berlin. Back in the United States, they had learned that Hurtig & Seamon’s In Dahomey was performing successfully every night on Broadway and was preparing for British Tour. Sometime in April, while the troupe was appearing at Berlin's Passage Theater, Ollie and Florence abandoned the troupe to travel to London in time for the opening of “In Dahomey" on March 16th at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
In July, the remnants of the troupe was reorganized by an middle-aged American entertainer, William Edgar Crado, who had been performing around Berlin since 1901 and was now preparing to take this troupe of Negro women to Russia as indicated by their visit to Berlin’s American Embassy on July 11th. Now armed with new passports, the women could now get the visa needed at the Russian consulate. A visit like this required a small interview, from which any African-American would have gone round. Unlike most of their colleagues in the American diplomatic service, Russian officials were not worried that the women were black. In fact, their appearances only aroused curiosity in them, since people of African descent were quite rare in Russia. But the absence of racial prejudice was replaced there by another — anti-Semitism. Official Laws of the Russian state demanded that the consular officer establish whether the visa applicant is not Jewish. In the case of the women, this question will be easily settled. But it is hard to believe that they would not be struck by a question that implied that the Jews, in a sense, were the “Negroes” of Russia.
The show is mentioned to have arrived in Russia early 1904, however, they possibly arrived in Moscow towards the end of 1903, possibly after undocumented appearances in France, Italy, Greece and Turkey under an entirely different stage name.
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| Russian Empire |
Arriving late-December 1903 in Russia, the troupe appeared in Moscow at Charles Aumont's French Theater around January 1904. The focal point of Moscow’s lively nightlife, located at 16 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street just west of Triumphal Square, the Aumont Theater was a entertainment garden occupying several park like acres that drew clientele from the more genteel and prosperous classes of society, who weren't put off by the frivolous nature of the establishment's entertainment. A giant white colonnade entrance and a staircase bathed in electric light led into the gardens. In the center was a beautiful Moorish palace where bands played fashionable music, to the left was a elegant restaurant and to the right people strolled along gravel walkways past vendors booths selling snacks and souvenirs into the depths towards a spacious outdoor café chantant where gypsy Romanian orchestras performed. That evening, as the crowds made their way from the theater towards the open-air café chantant, the “Louisiana Amazon Guards” joined twenty or thirty variety acts onstage varying from trained animals, acrobats to operatic singers. The theater director, Charles Aumont, was a successful yet ruthless French-Algerian businessman that renovated the gardens in 1898 to make visitors feel like they've visited a magical world. Unfortunately, he rather well-known for exploiting the chorus girls and female performers to allure the largely male audience. After their turn onstage, the head Maître d’ (surprisingly a black man from Mississippi named Frederick Thomas) informed the women that as singers, they would be called upon after their performance to entertain the private parties.
Shortly afterwards, the women traveled northwest to Saint Petersburg, to appear at the popular Aquarium Gardens. On February 8th, the Imperial Japanese navy launched a surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur in China. The two countries’ imperialistic ambitions in Manchuria had come into conflict. As the Russo-Japanese War raged in the Pacific Ocean and the Russian Far East territories, the troupe strutted across the stage and gardens of the Aquarium Theater, joining in the patriotic jubilation before the group without warning finally dissolved due to internal issues. Later that month, Emma Harris convinced Coretté to remain in Russia with her and together they formed the “Kristy Creole Duet”, while they continued to perform at the Aquarium. In March, the duo suddenly became the “Harris Trio” with the addition of Fannie Smith, and together they departed for Helsinki with an engagement at the Hotell Fennia.
On January 22, while attending a party in central Saint-Petersburg hosted William Caton (popular American jockey), the women witnessed the Bloody Sunday protest outside the Tsar's palace and riots across the city. Corette, Fannie and Emma packed up and returned to the Aumont Theater in Moscow; That summer, Corette and Fannie (now as a duo) performed successfully across Warsaw. On June 6, 1907, the 1905 Revolution was extinguished with brutal force. Although order was established, the issues that sparked the violence remained and fueled the peasants' desire for revenge. A tense atmosphere gripped the country. There was the constant presence of the strongly emerging left-wing movement which was bent on purging the decadence of Tsarist Russia. This was, of course, the infant Bolshevik movement, but despite this business was booming again. Theaters and cabarets reopened, foreigners returned, and entertainers resumed their tours through the major cities. By the summer of 1906, violence raged throughout Russia, prompting many of the elite to flee to the comfort of their country homes. Soon, these same estates were being torched and pillaged nightly, sometimes entire villages would out for the looting. On the horizons, nobleman and their families could see the glow of fires and the cries of the savage mobs. That autumn, as Russia became isolated due to the sudden halt of telegraph and postal services, many American expatriates began boarding trains and ships in the chaos back towards America, or at least other safer European countries.
On June 6, 1907, the 1905 Revolution was finally extinguished with brutal force. Although order was established, the issues that sparked the violence remained and fueled the peasants' desire for revenge. A tense atmosphere gripped the country. There was the constant presence of the strongly emerging left-wing movement which was bent on purging the decadence of Tsarist Russia. This was, of course, the infant Bolshevik movement, but despite this business was booming again. After the revolution, a small suffragette movement swelled across Russia. The emancipation of women brought a shift in Russian society, billowing Victorian gowns were thrown aside and replaced by fashionable unimpeding svelte dresses designed by designer Lamanova. Divorced laws were eased in response to feminine demands for freedom of choice in marriage. Throughout the summer, theaters and cabarets reopened, foreigners returned and entertainers resumed their tours through the major cities. Throughout the year, Black entertainers traveled to Russia in droves. With the exception of random artists touring Europe, very few black people have ever been to Russia, and very few of them have remained in it to live. In the years that Coretté spent there, there seemed to be no more than a dozen other blacks in Russia — permanent residents among more than a million people. All across the Russia, Black performers such as Belle Davis, Abie Mitchell, Josephine Morcashani, the Black Troubadours, and the popular duo Johnson & Dean filled the musichalls with excitement every night. They treated each other cordially and invited each new fellow Negro performer into their hotel rooms for breakfasts consisting of neckbones and beans to feel more at home. In St. Petersburg, a confectioner exploited the popularity of Ragtime by issuing the latest Negro minstrel hits on records pressed into discs of hard baker’s chocolate. By September 25th , Coretté resurfaced in Russia renewing her passport at Moscow's US Embassy. Since Fannie Smith was St. Petersburg around that time, Coretté may have began working as a solo artist around this time. The city’ s nightlife had slightly changed since the revolution, the old Aquarium had fallen upon hard times, Charles Aumont had frightened by the violence and with bankruptcy looming, he stole employees money and fled back to France. However, there was still work at the Hermitage Gardens and the old Yar Restaurant, which opened in the 18th Century, had surged in popularity since the revolution.
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| St. Petersburg (c.1900) |
The year 1908 was full of success for nearly every African-American expatriate across the Russian Empire. In Moscow, Miss Pearl Hobson was a popular headliner at the illustrious Yar Restaurant. Also backstage at the Yar, was waiter Frederick Thomas, back in Moscow after the terrible 1905 Revolution and employed at the restaurant as the new artistic director and Miss Hobson’s manager. Emma Harris was performing around the city as, Galima Oriedo, a popular opera singer and exotic dancer with a style similar to Mata Hari. In St. Petersburg, former leader of the Louisiana Amazon Guards, Ollie Burgoyne was a popular headliner, mistress to a Russian noble named Sasha who provided her with a beautiful mansion on the outskirts of the capital and was preparing to a open French lingerie boutique.
Also in performing in the Russian capital, Corette became accustomed to the Russian tradition of a bouquet of flowers and carriage ride through the city, if they admired you. Eventually after five months of courtship, one of her admirers, a nobleman named Utin, proposed to Coretté and invited her to move into his home in central St. Petersburg. It's currently unknown which member of the Utin household Corette, although it's been narrowed down between the wealthy prosecutor, Sergey Yakovlevich Utin or his cousin, the lawyer, Vladimir Lvovich Utin. The Utin family, originally successful Jewish merchants, after converting to the Eastern Orthodox Church in the 1850s, became an extremely wealthy bunch of bankers, business tycoons (Baku Oil Company), lawyers and politicians that owned (or built) an abundance of property in the Russian capital. At the elaborate dinners organized on the numerous family homes and estates, members of government, businessmen, writers and scientists were frequent guests. Everyone in the family was exceptionally educated, ambitious and surprisingly radical in their thinking. The family had taken part in the 1861 student movement and the Decembrist Revolution. Despite the Russia's national anti-Semitic attitudes, the family never forgot their Jewish heritage and maintained positive relations with Russian Jews. From the beginning, the marriage was marred by jealousy from her in-laws who felt that her husband had married beneath him. He was accused of renouncing his family for a Negro that couldn't speak Russian. Despite this, Coretté suddenly Russified her name as Coretti Genrichovna de Utina and possibly even petitioned to St. Petersburg’s Ministry of the Interior to receive Russian citizenship, as she suddenly stops bothering to renew her American passport and the U.S. Embassy no longer keeps any records of her. After the wedding, Coretti returned to the stage as the Indian Nightingale, Madame de Utina (sometimes spelled Outina). She soon emerged as a popular dramatic soprano singer at every major music hall, cabaret and restaurants across the Tsar's dominion. She would sing beautiful Russian Romance ballads (in imperfect Russian), American pop songs (which the audiences loved) and Negro spirituals. Those were halcyon days.
The marriage provided her with insight of a different side of Russia. In the households of Russian high society, there was an invisible glass barrier. Distinguishing the aristocracy from the workers was terribly important, but not always easy. The nobles walked on one side of the street, and the servants and peasants on the other. Although everyone attended the same churches, there was a separate entrance for the noblemen and their families, which led to a raised enclosure reserved for them. She also witnessed the miserable conditions of the peasantry, living in poverty, ignorance and filth from the cradle to the grave under the interlocking power of the landlords, the orthodox church and the Tsar. They lived upon small strips of land which was insufficient to support them. They often were forced to work an allotted number of days on the vast estates of the wealthy landowners or for Kulaks (rich peasants). If they were unable to pay their taxes, the gendarmerie payed them a visit, seizing their horses, hogs, cows and anything else of value. Coretti watched from the windows as the peasants wept and merely declared that it was will of God. That thus it had always been, and so it must always be.
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| New York - Mount Olivet Church (October 1910) |
In the fall of 1910, Coretti returned to New York after eight years abroad and paid her family a visit at 218 West 64th Street. There she found the family had fallen upon hard times and relocated to the dangerous San Juan Hill district. There tensions between Negroes and the Irish (east of Amsterdam Ave) ran high. The neighborhood was also a terribly congested predominately with African Americans and Caribbeans immigrants. Her father was laboring as a elevated railway porter, her mother still scrubbing floors for the white families and her brother Edward selling newspapers on every street corner across San Juan Hill. Young Clara and Miles were still attending the nearby school. Although the family was happy to reunite with Coretti, the joy quickly dissolved whenever the subject of her recent marriage came up. Her parents weren't to pleased nor did they accept their daughter's marriage to a white man. Soon newspapers began reporting about the musical appearances of “Coretta de Outine of St. Petersburg”. An old acquaintance of Coretti, Richetta G. Randolph helped to arrange her appearances in hotels, clubs, churches and other social functions around the city. On October 27th, Coretti appeared in the musical cantata, “Jephthah and his Daughter” held at the Mt. Olivet Debating Club. After the performance, Toastmaster Allison presented Coretti with a gold pin as a token of appreciation for her performance. The following month, on November 28th, at the Jubilee Quartette Reception held at the Hotel Maceo, Coretti beautifully performed, ‘Do not say that the grave ends all’. Eventually, the tour came to a halt as Coretti could no longer stand America's prejudiced attitudes, especially since she had become so accustomed to being able to frequent any restaurant or public space that she wanted in Europe. On December 5th, Ms. Randolph threw a large going away party at her apartment at 248 W. 53rd Street before Coretti boarded another ship five days later back home to Russia.
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| Kiev - Apollo Gardens (July 1911) |
Back home, Coretti embarked upon tour across the Russian Empire. By July 1911, she was in Kiev at the Apollo Garden Theatre. Located at 8 Meringovskaya St, a three-story stone building, known as the Noble Club, housed the Apollo restaurant with its open-air stage that showcased variety, opera and theatrical productions daily. The following month, she arrived in the Latvia just outside the capital of Riga in the seaside resort town of Jūrmala. The town, with its wooden art nouveau villas, sanatoriums and long sandy beaches was already a popular tourist destination for Soviet officials and top union members. In the Edinburgh neighborhood (now Dzintari), the Rigasche Rundschau newspapers advertised Coretti’s debut at the Edinburger Sea Pavilion on August 10th. Rigasche Rundschau: “Mlle Outina, the Indian Nightingale. The fact that that a black is a Russian Romance singer, you probably never heard of such and yet she behaves as so. Originating from the United States, Fraulein Outina came to Russia, where she was the main attraction in the south (Ukraine), Moscow and St. Petersburg, and was received enthusiastically everywhere. Here, too, she had great applause yesterday upon completing her first song, because she has good qualities and a beauty for her race. It was pleasant to say that her manner and costume were free from any theatrical gimmicks and completely natural and discrete. Furthermore, the directors succeeded in accordance with general wishes to extend her stay for another five days.” Unfortunately, during the course of her tour, a double agent shot and killed Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin while he attended a performance at the Kiev Opera House. The Tsar was so near the Prime Minister, that he heard the shots himself. A sense of doom settled over Russia, many felt apocalypse was fast approaching and no one and nothing could stop it.
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| Riga - Edinburger Sea Pavillon (August 1911) |
On January 15th, 1912, several newspapers reported stories coming from St. Petersburg, that a Mlle. Utina, a black woman married to a Russian and follower of the Lutheran religion, was sent to Alexandrovskaya Hospital with a life-threatening condition and was near death. What exactly was the cause of this condition is unknown, although its believed to be one of her two pregnancies during her brief marriage. Whatever it was, Coretti briefly disappeared from the limelight and prepared for a change in her career.
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| St. Petersburg Imperial Conservatory |
The country-wide celebration, known as the Romanov Tercentenary, started 1913 off with a bang. This celebration marked the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty beginning with a week of receptions at the Winter Palace in February before the Imperial family took a pilgrimage in May to Moscow and the numerous cities that once occupied the ancient territory of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. While Russia was opening the year in bliss and jubilation, the Utin household was filled drama and turmoil. Coretti frequently noticed her husband was spending long periods away from home and whenever he returned, she tormented him with questions. She soon learned that the majority of the family strongly disapproved of the marriage, not so much on account of Coretti’s color but for general social reasons. The arguments eventually culminated with divorce, especially as Utin was constantly under pressure to do so from his family. That fall, as her marriage fell apart, Coretti enrolled at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Musical Conservatory (now the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory) for intense musical and voice culture training under Professor Elisabeth F. Zwanziger, whom she'd also receive private lessons from as well. For a woman, despite a ten year residence in Russia, could hardly hold a conversation in the Russian language. This made it difficult to understand how she was able to secure a position in such a prestigious school. However she was able accomplish attend one of Russia's major educational institutions, she likely paid well for her musical education, as she continued appearing music halls as a entertainer.
While studying at the conservatory, she was soon introduced to an esteemed member of the Petrograd Conservatory and popular pianist, Nikolai Burenin, and it wasn't long before he offered her a interesting proposition in joining his latest venture, the Society of Fine Arts. Burenin and fellow pianist (and director of the St. Petersburg Theater of Musical Drama) Mikhail Bichter organized the Society in 1911 under the League of Education and received permission in early 1913 from E.P. Karpov (chief director of Imperial Theaters) to turn the organization into a independent society with its own charters. The organization was divided into four sections: Musical, Dramatic, Literary and Artistic (sculpture and painting). The musical section, headed by Burenin, consisted of more than a hundred singers, pianists, violinists, cellists, musicologists and professors from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Around the Russian capital, the Society arranged “literary & musical mornings”, which gathered large audiences of five to six hundred people consisting of workers and peasants. The carefully organized program promoted the best works of Russian romance, folk and classical music such as the works of Glinka, Tchaikovsky and Glazunov. The majority of the public concerts were usually held in the hall of the Tenishev Secondary School (at 33-35 Mokhovaya) as well as at the Zemsky School, Worker's Clubs and the Labor Exchange. Touring with the Society of Fine Arts, Coretti soon discovered that she was performing before audiences of revolutionaries who used the concerts as fronts for their anti-government meetings. A significant part of the income from the paid concerts went to the Bolshevik party. Through the underground revolutionary Burenin, Coretti was introduced to Countess Sofia V. Panina, F.I. Drabkina, V.V. Gordeeva, A.I. Mashirov and many other revolutionary actors, composers, musicians, artists and writers. From her new Bolshevik acquaintances, she became more familiar with the unrelenting fury and brutality of the Tsarist gendarmerie and Okhrana (secret police) upon the lower classes. The leaders of the proletariat were shadowed, hunted and sent to rot in distant Siberian prisons for their illegal underground activities.
From late April to early May 1914, the underground Bolshevik newspaper, Path of Truth, announced the "Literary & Musical evenings" at the Ligovsky People's House, located on 63 Tambovskaya Lane, on Petrograd's outer edges near the numerous factories and industrial plants. It was there every night, as the band struck up the music, Coretti emerged upon the makeshift stage inside the industrial plant. Before a backdrop of a blue sky and endless grain fields, Coretti, clothed in a tattered dress and carrying a sickle, began singing a lamentable song of anguish, pain, and suffering which was so dramatic and powerful that it touched the hearts of every worker in the audience that night. However, Coretti soon discovered that she'd performed for a roomful of revolutionaries who used the concerts as fronts for their anti-government meetings. Through Burenin, Coretti was introduced to many other revolutionary actors, composers, musicians, artists and writers. From her new Bolshevik acquaintances, she became more familiar with the unrelenting fury and brutality of the Tsarist gendarmerie and Okhrana (secret police) upon the lower classes. The leaders of the proletariat were shadowed, hunted and sent to rot in distant Siberian prisons for their illegal underground activities.
On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, setting in motion the events leading to the outbreak of World War I. On August 4, the German Army advanced upon Belgium in response. Immediately afterward: "Because of the aggressive attitude of the German government, France, Great Britain, and its Allies have declared a general mobilisation." Throughout the Russian Empire, the war was greeted with an eruption of patriotic fervor. Posters appeared everywhere, calling every able-bodied man to help defend their country. Men were seen standing in long lines to enlist (or to answer the draft), boys were boarded into trucks heading for their local regiment bases. On every street corner stood a soldier. That summer, Russia entered a period of unprecedented bloody savagery which would last for seven years and claim the lives of more than ten million people. No other country paid the price for the folly of 1914 as Russia did. Since the outbreak of the war, Russia's lack of arms and ammunition was quite apparent. The shortages became so severe that soldiers were sent to the front without guns and ordered to look for them amongst the dead. Many soldiers didn't even have boots. The officer corps, half of which were noblemen, suffered terrible losses in the first battles against the Germans. In the early months of the war, many families began following the action closely on a large map of Europe. Most men were away fighting on the front lines, eventually even Emma Harris' husband was somewhere fighting in the trenches, leaving the women and children behind alone in the villages and cities. Caring for the sick and wounded soldiers became a popular way for noblewomen to do their part for the war effort. Although most of their motives were honest and sincere, there were some elements of vanity and rivalry among the aristocratic women to see who could house, feed and care for the soldiers more splendidly than the rest. Other nobles, such as the Sheremetevs', converted several of their properties into hospitals, organized shipments of relief packages to Russian prisoners of war, helped bandage the wounded at private infirmaries and formed organizations dedicated to helping war orphans.
On September 1, the Tsar declared that St. Petersburg would be known as Petrograd. In the Petrograd, high society was basking in what would be Russia's last spectacular year and to be Russian society's greatest season. There was a feverish desire to have a good time to combat the undercurrent of nervousness. All of Petrograd indulged in wild partying, amusement and merrymaking before the Tsarist government initiated prohibition that November (alcohol was to banned for the remainder of the war). One highlight of the year was Countess Shuvalov's black and white ball, with the uniformed Chevalier Gardes in attendance. Everyone spent their evenings out at the opera and attending parties. At popular restaurants, everyone danced the tango and downing champagne to the wailing of gypsy singers, red-clad Romanian violinists, and clinking glasses. People were spending money as quickly as they could because they weren't sure what was to happen next.
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| Coretti de Utina (c.1915) |
Early 1915, the Fine Arts Society appeared at the Women's Medical Institute where they offered a heavily censored concert for the wounded soldiers. Other Russian performers included monarchist, chauvinistic, anti-Jewish and anti-Armenian jokes and songs in their programs, much to the disgust of Burenin. The society soon began subtly including anti-war and pro-Bolshevik propaganda into their programs. Quickly, the hospital administration caught on and began issuing warnings. However, after the third concert, the Society was barred from appearing in war hospitals and infirmaries after a warrant was issued by the Okhrana.
Around this time, during a trip to Finland, Coretti met the discreet, well-mannered young blond-haired pianist Boris Borisovich Titz. The Titz family, with origins traced back to Bavaria, made their way to Russia when concert artist, Augustus Dietz toured Russia in 1771. Augustus received an offer to remain in St. Petersburg as a member of Tsarina Catherine's Imperial court orchestra, where he amassed a huge fortune. Over the years, the Dietz family name eventually developed into Titz. Like most bourgeoisie families, the Titz's valued education, particularly musical education to continue their reputation as a noted musical family. On October 29, 1890, Boris Borisovich was born to Anna Vasilievna and Boris Nikolaevich Titz on the family estate in the village Vysh-Gorodishche deep in the Tver province, just northwest of Moscow. He was the third of four children, Olga (1880), Natalia (1885) and Alexey (1895). By 1900, the family left Vysh-Gorodishche for St. Petersburg where they resided at 36 V.O. ya Liniya 3 on Vasilyevsky Island. The Island was center of the majority of St. Petersburg’s scientific and other educational institutions. The early 20th Century brought about an active housing construction boom on boom as new buildings, particularly industrial plants were constantly appearing. In 1908, months before Boris graduated from the Karl Marx School (and receiving a gold medal), Boris Nikolaevich Titz died suddenly on March 23, 1908 and after a funeral at St. Andrew's Cathedral was buried later at Smolensk Orthodox Necropol. Immediately afterwards, the family’s fortune quickly began to dwindle away. The following year, as young Boris enrolled himself into the Law facility of the St. Petersburg Imperial University, where he began offering private Math and Latin lessons for fellow classmates in order to pay for his classes. He completed his full University course in 1912 with his thesis “Peculiarities of protection of possession under Russian Law”. Since he showed a keen interest in music and singing since childhood, instead of pursuing a career in law, he immediately afterwards he enrolled into the esteemed St. Petersburg Imperial Musical Conservatory, where he studied piano under professor Anna Nikolaevna Esipova until his graduation three years later in 1914. After graduating from the conservatory, he found work around Petrograd as a pianist, and supplemented his income by offering piano lessons at his apartment at 20, V.O. ya Liniya 9. Not long after the two met, Coretti and Boris' mutual sympathy grew into a deep feeling and two quickly began dating.
By June 1915, Coretti had graduated from the Conservatory, although she continued receiving private musical lessons from Professor Zwanziger and an Italian woman named Geraldini. Meanwhile, she had possibly more-or-less returned to performing around Petrograd with the Fine Arts Society. Throughout the summer, Russian officers found themselves wasting scarce artillery shells on their own troops in a desperate attempt to get them to fight. So dreadful were the conditions at the front, that many soldiers shot off their own fingers to escape the carnage. Many began to desert and return to their villages, which had been nearly drained of men. That same summer at Moscow's Aquarium Garden, Afro-American businessman Frederick Thomas sold tobacco sending the proceeds to the troops. Elsewhere, bazaars were organized to sell items to raise money for the troops. Despite being deprived of access to military hospitals, the Society continued offering stage shows in the working class districts of Petrograd. Soon, with the assistance of actress Maria Fyodorovna Andreeva, the Fine Arts Society began staging performances at the Putilov factory. In between her performances, Coretti began to notice the audiences whispering amongst each other of their hatred of autocracy and the senseless imperialist war. In September, Tsar Nikolai II made the disastrous decision to replace Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and assume supreme command of Russia's armed forces. From that point onwards, the military's mounting failures were blamed solely on the tsar. With the tsar off at the front, Tsarina Alexandra, along with the mysterious holy man Rasputin, took command of the government. Rasputin's murky influence and the negative public perception of the German-born Tsarina as an enemy spy fed talk of dark forces at work that destroyed Russian society's waning trust in the Romanovs. Everywhere, pamphlets were distributed claiming: "To be for the Tsar is to be against Russia!" Everyone, even Imperial family members, begged Tsar Nikolai for change and reforms to allow society a greater voice in the government, although it was likely to late by then to halt the drift towards revolution. Society's lack of trust in the government was matched by the government's distrust of the people. Convinced that the people, particularly the bourgeoisie, presented a grave threat to the crown, the Okhrana kept surveillance on the wealthy. Private homes were being monitored for subversive activities. The government feared many aristocratic women were inviting military officers in their salons and encouraging seditious talk. Government agents believed the elite's alienation from the throne a more serious threat than the one posed by the poor and disenfranchised. Many aristocrats found life in the city burdensome and many retreated to their country estates.
Early 1916, the Fine Arts Society organized a concert held at the Tenishev School, with the participation of Maxim Gorky, who gave a fiery propaganda filled speech despite the presence of the secret police. A financially successful author, playwright and editor, Gorky (born Alexei Peshkov in 1868) was well noted for publicly opposing the Tsar, exposing the Tsarist government's control of the press and had been arrested and even exiled on numerous occasions. He supported liberal appeals to the government for civil rights and social reform. He was personal friend of Lenin since 1902, and was acquainted with many revolutionaries. His reputation grew as a literary voice of Russia's bottom strata of society and a fervent advocate of social, political and cultural transportation. Gorky also had a passionate love of the theater. One of his aspirations since the 1890s, was to develop a network of provincial theaters for the peasants in hopes to reform Russia's theatrical world. In 1904, he was able to open a theater in his hometown of Nizhny Novgorod, but unfortunately the government censors banned every play that he proposed and Gorky abandoned the project. On December 31, 1913, after the Romanov Tercentenary, Gorky was allowed to return home Russia after eight years of living in exile in Italy. By March 1914, he was living in St. Petersburg working as an editor for the underground Bolshevik Zvezda and Pravda newspapers. After the concert, Burenin introduced Coretti to Gorky, who confessed to her that despite his disdain for female entertainers, he was her biggest fan, expressing that her Negro folk songs captured the essence of the struggles of the proletariat. Gorky and Coretti became close friends, and she may been a frequent guest at his Petrograd apartment on 23 Kronversky Avenue where there was constant drinking, dancing, gambling and frequent readings of 18th Century pornographic novels (Marquis de Sade was rather popular). During these nights at Gorky’s home, Coretti would've mingled with publishers, academics, revolutionaries, the great singer Fyodor Chaliapin and even Lenin himself.
By mid-1916, while the mood was falling in the country, the feverish atmosphere began to penetrate into the entertainment that civilians and military were looking for. On the eve of the war came from Argentina, flew to Paris and sped around the world a new dance fashion, the Tango. During the war years, the popularity of tango increased; however, some professional dancers and singers brought ominous notes to his elegant, stylized eroticism. One couple became famous for their "Tango of Death", in which a man, as usual dressed in a flawless tail coat, was made up in such a way that his face looked like a skull. It was a melodramatic echo of the gloomy news coming from the fronts. As the year came to an end, with millions of peasants sent off to the front, food shortages loomed over Russia and the rapid increase in the price of goods fueled larger and more frequent strikes in the cities. Shortage of fuel and electricity also forced the Russian government to declare that theaters must observe part-time work - from eight o'clock in the evening until midnight. The emotional incontinence that the Russians were looking for in tango during the war, and the emotional growth they received from vodka and wine, found a new blood relative in drugs, primarily in cocaine. In certain urban circles, cocaine has become the most preferred path to euphoric oblivion in the face of intractable problems raging around. The gendarmes were becoming reluctant to repel the masses of protesters, instead many policemen began joining the crowds, shouting: "Down with the War!" Once, while Grand Duchess Xenia's automobile drove through the streets of Petrograd, a group of street kids chased the car and pelted it with snowballs, yelling, "Down with the filthy bourgeoisie!" On the night of December 16th, a group of men led by Prince Felix Yusupov murdered Rasputin in an attempt to free Russia from his mysterious influence. Profoundly shaken by his death, the Tsar and his family retreated into seclusion. Petrograd became a massive lunatic asylum, discontent rising with each day. The dire food shortages, combined with the 300% inflation left Russia on the brink of revolution on the part of the lower class.
On March 8th (O.S. February 23), 1917, over seven thousand female textile workers from St. Petersburg's Vyborg district, marched through the streets crying for bread. The shortages had left the lower class starving, cold and desperate. Banners were erected everywhere, denouncing both the war and the Tsar. The crowds began breaking shops windows and raiding bakeries. Before the day ended, as many as ninety thousand had marched through the streets before order was restored. The revolution, however, had just begun. Throughout the night, Bolshevik revolutionaries organized further strikes and marches into the city center. The following morning, more than three hundred thousand workers from the northern outlying neighborhoods, crossed the Neva river at Alexandrovsky Bridge where they pushed through several hundred Cossacks on their way towards Nevsky Prospect. The city's fine inner-city neighborhoods had not seen such chaos since the 1905 revolution. By February 26, Cossacks patrolled the streets and machine guns were positioned everywhere. Street gatherings were banned and residents were warned that the authorities were ordered to confront any unrest with force. Despite these measures, protesters filled the streets only to be met by gunfire. All the blood spilling in the streets caused many soldiers to mutiny and join the mobs. By March 12th, half of the city's 160,000 man garrison had joined the revolutionaries. Prisoners across the city were released into the streets, gendarmes were murdered, courthouses, arsenals, shops, private homes and the Ministry of the Interior were looted and ransacked. Mobs killed any respectable looking men, causing many gendarmes to strip their uniforms and flee the city. At the Mariinsky Palace, government ministers met to resign from their positions before slipping out of Petrograd by nightfall. Towards the end of the day, a red flag was raised above the Winter Palace. The capital was now under Bolshevik control. On March 16th, Tsar Nikolai abdicated and as their world dissolved around them, many aristocrats fled to the countryside. The old order evaporated and anarchy spread. While the Duma met at Tauride Palace to consider how to address the chaos, a rival political power, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers & Soldiers Deputies, held a meeting in the palace's right wing. The new provincial government, in order to win the support of the Soviet and it's the leader, Vladimir Lenin, agreed to amnesty for all political prisoners, freedom of speech, press, and assembly. They also agreed to the abolition of all restrictions based on race, class, religion, and nationality. The Okhrana and corps de Gendarmes was also to be abolished. The Bolsheviks began attacking the Burzhúi (bourgeoisie), or anyone classified as privileged. All it took was a starched white shirt, smooth hands, eyeglasses, a woman's hairstyle or even any evidence of bathing could classify a person as Burzhúi, causing an angry mob to set upon you.
After the February Revolution and with Russia in a dire situation, Coretti’s Russian career was suddenly interrupted and she pondered at the idea of returning to America. The war and revolution had abruptly ended Russia’s importance on the continental theatrical circuit. Extensive touring was impossible and many Russian establishments began shutting down. The vast majority of the African-American community in Russia were rushing to Petrograd’s American Embassy and Moscow's Consulate to apply for passports in order to sail across the Black Sea towards Turkey and Romania or board Trans-Siberian trains towards Manchuria and Japan in their journey back to America. However, letters she received from friends such as Ollie Burgoyne and Ida Forcyne who had returned home to America , she was able to learn about the changes in the American entertainment scene. The majority of Black establishments only wanted light-skinned Negro women, Harlem cabarets had women perform shake dances in between the tables and mingle with the audiences as Jazz wailed in the background. Such activities didn't happen in Russian cabarets and music halls. Most of the successful Negro performers returning to America from Europe, found themselves suddenly penniless and turning to domestic work. By May, Russia was already adapting to the country's new political reality, although most activities continued as before. Although it was noted at every prestigious venue, the 19th-century opera "A Life of the Tsar" was hastily dropped from the repertoire. That month, Boris’s younger brother, Alexey Borisovich, had graduated from the Imperial University and immediately began packing. He decided to head south to the Ukraine, so he could continue his studies and was bringing along his wife, Lidiya Aleksandrovna Zelenina and their one year old son Alexey Aleksiyovich. However, Boris’ sister, Natalia was to remain in the city with her lawyer husband, Vasily Nechaev and look after their mother.
In September 1917, Boris and Coretti finally Petrograd's chaotic atmosphere for the quiet merchant city of Kharkov. Unfortunately, like every other Russian city, everything there was scarce. Everywhere, there were long lines just to receive small amounts of bread, sugar, kerosene and even shoes. To make matters worse, the hungry residents began blaming the local Jews for all of their problems. The Jewish community were blamed for all the missing goods, robberies and violence around the city. By the fall of 1917, proclamations appeared everywhere declaring for the restoration of order and the pogroms of all merchants and Jews. Beginning September 26th, massive drunken angry mobs swarmed the streets on a murderous spree for nearly a week. The local soldiers and gendarmes were soon unable to control the violence, until Major-General, Alexander Kurilko, declared martial law. For a short time, meetings and rallies were banned. Theaters, cinemas and stage shows were closed and a curfew was evoked. After the chaos finally dissipated, Boris began teaching at the new Conservatory. Meanwhile, in between performing with Mikhail Bichter’s Philharmonic Society Orchestra, Coretti spent time across the street of the Conservatory at 66, Chernyshevskiy Prospekt, where architect Vladimir Pokrovsky often organized musical evenings in his apartment. After singing a few songs, she'd mingle amongst the other musicians and listen in on the disputes over the development of artistic scene of Ukraine. She was soon acquainted with artists R.M. Savin, M.A. Sharonov, architect M.F. Pokorny, cellist E. Belousov and composer K.K. Gorsky. On November 7th, the Bolsheviks struck again in Petrograd. Two days earlier, having changed his appearance, Lenin left the temporary asylum in Finland and slipped into the capital; he managed to convince his comrades that it was time to take power. Red troops, coordinated by Leon Trotsky - a talented assistant of Lenin - occupied a number of strategic sites in the city. That night, the Bolshevik-led soldiers, sailors and factory workers attacked the Winter Palace, the former royal residence where the Provisional Government met. A small defense force in the palace, consisting of two or three junkers' mouths and a part of the women's battalion, was suppressed after several hours of confrontation. Bolsheviks arrested members of the government; Kerensky, who had become prime minister by that time, was able to escape by taking a car at the United States embassy. Most Kharkov residents knew nothing of the October Revolution due to the slow spread of news across the vast Russian landscape and local printers on strike. The following day, news finally on the Revolution arrived by telegram, before Petrograd telegraphs stopped working and Kharkov was cut off from the capital. By November 10th, all communications with Moscow and Kiev were also cut off, leaving Kharkov completely alone. The city soon formed its own provisional government, the Military Revolutionary Committee, and armed soldiers were posted everywhere.
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| Russian Civil War (1918-20) |
On February 12th, 1918, at Kharkov’s Metropol hotel, the new Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic (DKR) was established under the leadership of Victor Andreevich Sergeev, mainly known as “Comrade Artyom”. This new republic also included the cities of Lugansk, Yekaterinoslav and Krivoy Rog although Kharkov was named the capital of this new republic. On March 3rd, the newly formed Soviet Union backed out of the war after the signing of Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Ten days later, 30,000 German and Austrian troops marched into the Ukraine, by mid-March, the Germans were already in Odessa and the new puppet state became known as the Hetmanate. Having occupied the south of Russia, the Germans and Austrians established a puppet state in Ukraine, including Odessa, where 30 thousand of their military were stationed. It wasn't long before the Germans turned their attention towards Kharkov and began invading the DKR on March 18th. On April 7th, German troops entered Kharkov through Yekaterinoslavskaya street and seized control of all government buildings as the old DKR government fled to Lugansk. On May 3rd, curfews were imposed upon the city and movement was restricted. In stark contrast to dying Moscow, German-occupied Kharkov was in full swing. There was an abundance of military officers of all ranks roaming the streets and lounging at popular cafes and restaurants. The presence of the Germans marked the end of the reign of terror against the “bourgeoisie,” which the Bolsheviks unleashed after the October coup. But not all Bolsheviks fled: some went underground and intended to expel the invaders and their local allies, leading a stubborn guerrilla war, which became part of everyday life in the Ukraine. The region became terribly dangerous, besides the Red Army attempting to push out the Germans, the Ukraine's notorious criminal gangs (their brazen behavior comparable to Chicago's gangsters) began a reign of terror with nightly burglaries and murders in the streets. On November 11, 1918, everything suddenly changed as the Germans surrendered to the Allies and the Great War finally ended. Soon after, the Germans began to liberate the territories they occupied, including Kharkov, as envisaged by the peace agreement. As the Red Army reestablished power in Kharkov before continuing forward to push out the White Army in a series of difficult battles, Coretti and Boris were quickly engaged with the newly formed "Concert Brigade of the South-Western Front", that organized musical performances in theatres, libraries, nightclubs, mines, factories, hospitals and Red Army military camps across the Ukraine.
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| Kharkov - Grotzsk Gardens (August 1919) |
On January 3rd, 1919, the Red Army reclaimed Kharkov who then immediately reestablished the DKR government. However, on February 17th, upon the suggestion of Lenin, the DKR was dissolved and merged back with Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The Kharkov branch of the Soviet Cheka (secret police), which had formed in December 1917, was finally put to use, whose first orders were to establish a concentration camp in the city for bourgeoisie prisoners. That summer, Ukraine became turbulent and tense due to the raging Civil War. On July 5th, with the situation of the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War drastically in favor of the White Army, Coretti witnessed General Anton Denikin’s capture of Kharkov as he advanced north towards Moscow. This was followed by looting and terror by the Bolshevik supporters. Meanwhile, the following month, Coretti found herself entertaining nightly at the Grotzsk Garden Theatre on 17 Ekaterinoslavskaya street, just 20 minutes away from the old Zerkalo Zhizni cinema that was once owned by Emma Harris just five years earlier.
In 1920, as the Russian Civil War dragged to a halt and some sort of order was finally being brought to the Ukraine, all major Ukrainian theatrical and operatic companies were nationalized and Soviet approved performances were being produced, particularly at the old Kharkov Opera House. Built in 1829, the old Kharkov Opera located on Rymarskaya Street 21, with its French Renaissance decorated auditorium (imitating the Tuileries Palace), staged a remarkable production of Verdi’s "
Aida", with Coretti performing the lead role. The Ukrainians felt her role echoed Coretti’s own reality - an Egyptian captive, a Negro slave, who threw off the shackles of slavery in the name of love as around the same time, after years of courtship and refusing his previous four marriage proposals, Coretti and Boris had finally married. She had been reluctant to follow through with the marriage, as she had aspirations of opening a children's vocal school in America. However, Boris informed her of the United States’ widespread fear of Bolshevism, anarchism and communism. American newspapers were frequently reporting about mass trials and arrests, also Boris reminded her of how difficult it would be for a Negro woman to open a major establishment in the United States. Coretti also told him of how her first marriage fell apart, yet Boris promised that not all men were the same. He wouldn't allow anyone to interfere with their private lives and reminded her that he loved her no matter what color her skin was, that the human soul didn't depend on skin color. Fortunately, his family and friends quickly accepted his new wife.
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| Moscow (1930s) |
In the summer of 1921, with the Great Famine raging across the USSR, the newlyweds relocated north to the new Soviet capital of Moscow. The couple resided at Poluektov Pereulok 7, were they shared a communal kitchen with the Duchenne family. The family, especially seven year-old Igor, enjoyed hearing Coretti’s voice ring throughout the apartment. Often Coretti would babysit young Igor Duchenne, who would bring her books from the Library of the USSR Academy of Sciences despite the fact she had poor grasp of Russian. So instead, she'd cradle him in her arms and rock him to sleep singing, “Sleep my Boy” (“Spi, moy mal’chik” - I. Dunaevsky & Lebedev-Kumach). Unable to tour as the famine spread, Coretti decided to continued her studies by enrolling at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory’s Opera Studio, which was under the direction of Mikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov. She spent her days studying under Varvara Mikhailovna Zarudna and Nadezhda Ignatyevna Kalnin-Gandolfi. In late 1923, shortly after graduation, Coretti began appearing in Leningrad at Boris Pronin's Mansard Club.
Early 1924, due to the harsh Russian winter, Boris and Coretti traveled south to Tbilisi to pay Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov a visit. Appearing slim and elegant in her bright colored shawl, Coretti lounged on their dining room sofa speaking in a flurry of English to her old teacher, Varvara, who affectionately called her Koretinka. On April 3rd, Coretti debuted at Moscow's infamous Bolshoi Theater opening with a remarkable three-day engagement, performing of several arias from Aida followed by numerous classical numbers written by famous Russian composers. The second half of the program primarily consisted of Negro songs (mostly hymns) performed in her dramatic lyrical soprano voice. This major performance, her first in Russia since 1917, was met with great enthusiasm and numerous standing ovations. With this success, Coretti hoped to continue performing as a operatic singer, but unfortunately Russian music critics felt she was better suited as a concert artist. After her final performance at the Bolshoi, she departed for Leningrad with a contract for two concerts and a string of engagements across the provinces. In November, returning home from an appearance in the Ukraine, she was writing extensively to W.E.B. du Bois, who had heard of her triumph at the Bolshoi and expressed his plans for a visit to the Ukraine. Coretti asked du Bois to send her sheet music of popular American music which were to acquire in the Soviet Union and also put him in contact with her mother to cover the costs as she was unable to send money from Moscow.
In April 1925, the couple were performing in Tver, near the village of Vysh-Gorodishche, where Boris was born and where the old Titz estate sat crumbling since the revolution. In October, Coretti and pianist E. Lutsky signed a 20-concert contract with the State Philharmonic Orchestra for across the Northern Caucasus and the Ukraine with a program consisting of Russian composers such as Spendiarov, Vasilenko, Glazunov, Gnesin and also including compositions from Afro-American composers such as Barley, Cook and others. This was first of many extensive tours (1924-1940) across the Soviet Union under the State Philharmonic Society. Opening on December 7th in Rostov-on-Don, the group traversed across Melitopol, Krasnodar, Simferopol and Yevpatoria. Letters home to friends, Coretti mentioned how much she loved traveling to the sea, although during her engagement in Evpatoria she complained about the city's stuffiness and how impossible it was to find anything suitable to drink. She also mentions her distress with working with the Philharmonic orchestra as she felt wasn’t benefitting from her performances and felt they didn’t appreciate her talents as a concert artist.
In late-February 1926, Frank Withers and his Jazz Kings band (featuring Sidney Bechet) arrived in Moscow, where they received a whirlwind of success upon opening at the Cinema Malaya Dimitrova. Known as the ‘Palace of the Silver Screen’, the popular cinema opened new Hollywood films there each week to packed audiences and when the Jazz Kings opened there on February 22nd, the cinema was packed before the first note sounded and couples took to the aisles to dance the Charleston. When Coretti and the Philharmonic Orchestra returned from their Ukrainian tour, the Jazz Kings were making appearances at the Hall of Writers and the Moscow Conservatory. The Philharmonic Orchestra quickly organized a month-long Ukrainian tour for the Jazz Kings, with Coretti as their lead performer, giving her the opportunity to reap from the success jazz was creating in the Soviet Union. In May, the group played a week in Kharkov, two successful weeks in Kiev and a final week in Odessa at the Letnem Theatre, before the Jazz Kings returned to Germany. In July, Coretti was engaged in Leningrad for a week at the Recreation Gardens before returning to the Ukraine in September for an engagement in Ekaterinoslav. The year ended rather interestingly, as she was appearing in a Jewish Music Concert held at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory’s Small Hall, where she demonstrated her skill performing traditional Jewish songs the Yiddish language.
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| "First Concert Jazz Band" (1927) |
During the summer of 1927, during a Caucasus tour, Coretti debuted in July onstage in the city of Baku, where she was advertised as the woman who introduced jazz to Azerbaijan despite newspapers not indicating any jazz numbers in her repertoire during her appearance there, although she did perform a number in the Azeri language. On December 11th, in the famous Grand Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic, Coretti accompanied the ‘First Concert Jazz Band’ led by Leopold Teplitsky and composed of about 15 people (2 violins, banjo, grand piano, tuba, trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, trombones and, of course, a great set of percussion instruments). Coretti, quite tall, lush, in an open green silk dress with a pelerine, perfectly in harmony with her golden brown skin, sang in English with a strong, rather low voice of a very beautiful timbre. The concert was unusual for that time. The hall was literally bursting with the public, barely getting the entrance tickets, stood all the time in the gallery, walking along the perimeter of the hall.
In 1928, after recording several songs in Moscow, Coretti began a four-year tour, appearing in Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Armenia and frequent appearances deep in Siberia. Although she performed jazz, she usually reverted to singing in Russian or Negro spirituals. On January 29th, 1929, she began the year performing at the Karl Marx Club in Minsk, just beside the border leading outside the Soviet Union towards Poland. Four months later, after a lengthy tour across the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic and other Central Asian countries, she returned west to the Ukraine, appearing in Vinnytsia on May 7th. Early July, Coretti and Boris received permission to depart the Soviet Union for a four month Latvian tour. She was set to perform just outside the Latvian capital of Riga in the seaside resort town of Jūrmala. 18 years since her last engagement there. The town had become a popular tourist destination for Soviet officials and top union members. In the Edinburgh neighborhood posters and newspapers advertised Coretti’s debut at the Sommertheater on July 11th, where she performed alongside Georgs Vlašeks and his Orpheans Orchestra for the Edinburgh Sea Festival for a successful week. The following month, on August 12th, Coretti and Boris appeared onstage together at Riga’s Palladium Kino where she performed beautiful Italian arias, several German and Russian folk songs and ending the program with her Negro folk songs (which consisted of Negro spirituals, Jazz and Blues). She also made subsequent evening appearances on Radio-Latvia reaching other parts of the small country. After a month of unreported activity, Coretti resumed her tour, appearing in the seaside towns of Jelgava and Windau (now Ventspils) before returning home to Moscow early November for an engagement at the Polytechnic Museum.
In 1930, she participated in a jazz revue led by Simon Kagan. Sometime early 1932, the Titz household had relocated to 15, Savelevski Pereulok, where they inhabited apartment #11, two small dingy rooms on the third floor in Moscow's Western section near Kropotkinskaya Square. On June 26th, Emma Harris, Coretti Arle Titz, actor Bob Ross and engineer Robert Robinson gathered at Nikolayevsky Station to welcome twenty two Afro-American artists (including Langston Hughes) that were invited the Soviet Union to produce a film depicting Negro laborers in their difficult working conditions in the American South. The film, was based off Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 1925 poem, Black & White, which protested American racism and imperialism. The film was sponsored by the Comintern and was to be produced by the Russo-German film company Meschrabpom. The following year, recorded two spiritual records - "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "Little David Play on Your Harp".
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| "By the waters of Minnetonka" (c.1937) |
On March 29, 1934, Coretti celebrated her tenth year on the Soviet stage with a radio concert at the Moscow Radio-Theater with many other Soviet entertainers. The radio broadcast reached as far as Paris where it was praised by the French press. After the assassination of Sergei Mironovich Kirov, Stalin's assumed successor, on December 1, 1934, life became much more oppressed within the Soviet Union. Early 1935, Coretti and developed close reltionships with Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson as they toured across the Soviet Union. In May 1936, Coretti appeared in the film Circus in the minor role as the nanny of the little black son of the heroine of the film Marion Dixon (Lyubov Orlova), before returning to her usual touring.
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| Moscow - Preparing for a summer engagement (1939) |
On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the USSR. Coretti survived the German invasion of Russia, with Hitler's army arrested only 44 miles (71 km) from Moscow. She organized an anti-air-raid squad on the roof of her apartment building and nursed ailing soldiers at Hospital No. 5012. On December 5th, the Red Army brought all its might into German positions causing the Wehrmacht to hastily withdraw. This marked the prelude to many victories for the Red Army. Despite the war, on December 7th, at the Maly Theatre, the All-Union Tour Association organized a concert revue of English and American Music & Songs. Honored Artist of the USSR, F. Petrova sang "Cowboy from Texas" and "Matrosskaya". This was followed by Coretti's successful performance, introducing Muscovites to the vocal works of English composers Purcell, Balfi, Quelter and American composers Johnson and Laurent.
In 1942, as World War II raged, Coretti and her husband made concert tours to Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod (at the time called Gorky), Kazan and other cities, performing spirituals on the front lines or singing before injured in field hospitals until Boris resumed work at the Conservatory despite the war conditions. Coretti wrote with admiration: “... The school works at full speed; teachers are once again fond of him.”
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| Coretti and Weyland Rudd dancing the cakewalk on film (1945) |
In 1945, the war was still raging, the majority of the theaters were closed and very few films were being produced. Around February, director Vasily M. Zhuravlev gathered the most talented actors of the USSR at Moscow’s Gorky Soyuzdetfilm Studio to film Jules Vernes’ “Fifteen Year Old Captain”. Mikhail Astangov, Osip Abdulov, Alexander Khvylya, Pavel Sukhanov, Vsevolod Larionov, Elena Izmaylova, Sergey Tsenin, Viktor Kulakov, Ivan Bobrov, Weyland Rudd and Mme. Arle-Titz were all honored artists, and despite the small budget and the majority of the actors being constantly preoccupied with other engagements, the film was predicted to be the biggest hit of the year. Shooting resumed in mid-May shortly after Victory Day, where the first scenes were between Coretti and the six year old Azarik Messerer. Under the blinding lights, young Azarik drifted asleep underneath a heavy blanket while Coretti, in the role of the black nanny named Nan, sang a beautiful Russian lullaby. To the entire film crew, Coretti was treated like a prima donna, even the director was afraid to approach her. Despite being seen throughout the film, she only had one musical number as her grasp of the Russian language after all those years was still poor. In June, the cast traveled to Georgia to film the African scenes on the Black Sea coast for eight months. Two-thirds of the film was shot on Primorsky Boulevard in Batumi and in the vicinity of the city, Tsihis-Dziri and Adzharis-Tskhali. On the beach was built the African village "Kazonde" as on screen, Transcaucasia’s nature created a complete illusion of African nature. While in Batumi, since her only scene was already shot, Coretti preoccupied her time Azarik, improving his poor table manners and teaching him how to properly hold a knife and fork. After fourteen months of filming 15 kilometres of film, the “Fifteen Year Old Captain” was finally released on March 18, 1946, immediately conquering the hearts of children and adults across the Soviet Union.
In 1947, after forty-years years of intense and continuous work, the forces of Arle-Titz were undermined, newspapers reported that her voice became worn out and lost its former beauty and full-soundness. Although it may have been that the Soviet Union’s music industry finally decided to shelf its once popular black prima donna. Which explains why after the war, she was no longer mentioned in Soviet news, as she was living quietly in Moscow until her death, December 14, 1951.
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| Coretti Genrichovna Arle Titz Gravestone |
After the death and cremation of Coretti Henrichovna Arle-Titz on December 14, 1951, Boris Borisovich turned to Varvara Mikhailovna Zarudnaya's niece, Vera Nikolaevna, with a request for the temporary burial of the urn with the ashes of his wife next to her close friend, composer Ippolitov-Ivanov. Coretti Arle-Titz was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery on December 15, 1951, in the family grave of Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and his wife, Varvara Mikhailovna Zarudnaya. In later years, Boris Borisovich did not have time to rebury the remains of Coretti, and after his death (in 1963) he was instead buried beside her.
