Vasily Vasilyev

Vasily Vasilyev was a Russian tenor who joined the imperial Russian opera company in 1857, three years before it moved into the Mariinsky Theatre, and stayed for the rest of his life. Trained at the St Petersburg Theatre School under Ricci, he made his debut in 1858 as Gualtiero in Balfe's The Bohemian Girl and settled into secondary parts: the Fool Prince in Rogneda, Vasya in The Power of the Fiend, and Prince Shuisky in the first Boris Godunov. He took leading roles too, Sobinin and the Duke in Rigoletto. The imperial theatres numbered him second among their Vasilyevs.