The Fredösphere

Who is this enigmatic Russian bass, this riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a Santa Claus suit?  It's Ivan Rebroff, whom I mentioned at the end of my last post.  Somehow I acquired one of his LPs years ago.  Like all my vinyl records, it was destroyed in a basement flood; it's the one I miss the most.  Particularly, I would like to listen one more time to Mit der Troika in die Grosse Stadt*, wherein Ivan ascends in one breath from a bass low F to a soprano high B-flat.**

Look at this list of Ivan Rebroff albums at amazon.com.  Sadly, the best (i.e., most fully over the top) album covers are not represented.  The typical cover pictures the gemütlich bass sitting in a tavern, wearing big fur and a hat that looks as if a thawed woolly mammoth has been draped over his head.  He's holding a beer stein you could hide your golf clubs in, and he stares deeply into your eyes with a haughty expression that communicates three distinct messages:

1. If you are a woman, I am seducing you now.  If you are a man, do you know where your wife, sisters and daughters are?
   
2. My voice spans 18 octaves.
   
3. I'm drunk as a skunk.

Maybe there's more to Ivan than meets the eye.  After all, he won a Fullbright scholarship, as this website states.  I suspect his role as the incarnation of every absurd White Russian stereotype was an assumed one.  It certainly sold records; the guy has 49 freakin' gold LPs to his name.  Yow.

*My German is rusty, but I'm pretty sure that translates to "With the Threesome in the Big Stadium."  Sounds like the title of a Leni Riefenstahl film.

**Dang.  That doesn't seem possible.  I hope the years haven't "improved" my memory of the song.