Maria Maksakova (mezzo-soprano, born 1902)
Soviet opera singer (1902-1974)
Maria Petrovna Maksakova (Russian: Мария Петровна Максакова, née: Sidorova; April 8, 1902 – August 11, 1974) was a Soviet opera singer, mezzo-soprano, a leading soloist in the Bolshoi Theatre (1923–1953), who enjoyed great success in the 1920s and 1930s, in the times often referred to as the golden age of Soviet opera. Maria Maksakova, the three times laureate of the Stalin Prize first degree (1946, 1949, 1951), was designated as a People's Artist of the USSR in 1971. The actress Lyudmila Maksakova is her daughter; singer and TV presenter Maria Maksakova her granddaughter.
Biography
Maria Sidorova was born in Astrakhan, one of six children of Pyotr Sidorov, the executive director of the Volga Shipping company. After her father's death, ten-year-old Maria joined a local church choir to help her 27-year-old mother sustain a family. It was there that her vocal abilities were first noticed. Sidorova engaged herself in intensive self-education and a year later became a lead in the alto section of the choir, with which she stayed until 1917.
In late 1917, Sidorova joined the Astrakhan musical college to study the piano. She had no instrument at home, and had to stay at school to practise literally day and night. In the early 1918, she started studying vocal, originally as contralto.
The public source identifies “Maria Maksakova (mezzo-soprano, born 1902)” as soviet opera singer (1902-1974). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maria, Maksakova and mezzo-soprano.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4276041. VIAF identifies the subject as 2665272. The Library of Congress control number is n88622639. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1902, 1974, 1923 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maria Maksakova (mezzo-soprano, born 1902)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.