Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel

Who was Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel?

Nadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel was the Ukrainian and Russian opera singer, the niece of the famous Ukrainian sculptor Parmen Zabila. Vocally, she is best described as a lyrical soprano, with a particularly high tessitura.

In 1891 she graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, having been in the class of Natalia Iretskaya. She also studied in Paris with Mathilde Marchesi. She sang her debut in 1893 at the I. Setov operatic troupe in Kiev. In the season 1894-1895 she sang in Tiflis, in 1895-96 in the St. Petersburg Private opera, and in 1896-1897 in Kharkov. During 1897-1904 she was a leading soprano in Savva Mamontov's Private Russian Opera. In 1904-1911 she became the soloist of the Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersburg.

In 1896 she married the Russian artist Mikhail Vrubel, who created a series of her portraits.