MOSCOW, November 27. /TASS/. Politicians, musicians, artists and admirers paid their last respects to Russian opera star Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who passed away on November 22.
Among those who came to downtown Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall to pay tribute to the legendary Russian baritone were Federation Council (upper house) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, the Communist Party’s leader Gennady Zyuganov, the Bolshoi Theater Director General Vladimir Urin, violinist Vladimir Spivakov and artistic director of the National Philharmonic orchestra, and music composer and producer Igor Krutoy.
All of them offered condolences to Hvorostovsky’s wife Florence and their children. The singer’s parents Alexander Stepanovich and Lyudmila Petrovna also arrived in Moscow for the farewell ceremony.
According to Hvorostovsky’s last will, his body will be cremated and the ashes will be placed into two caskets. One of them will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery (the final resting place of the most outstanding art professionals, cultural personalities, scientists, politicians, and military people), and the other one in his home town of Krasnoyarsk, Eastern Siberia.
Hvorostovsky, who is broadly viewed as one of the greatest operatic baritones of our times, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the summer of 2015. He quitted the operatic stage in 2016 but carried on with concerts. Hvorostovsky died of brain cancer at the age of 55 on November 22 in London where he lived with his family.