A great opera singer, the widow of the outstanding conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, has passed away.

      Galina Vishnevskaya was 86 years old. Farewell to the actress will take place in Galina Vishnevskaya’s  Opera Singing Center at the address  1/25 Ostozhenka Street on December 13. On the following day she will be buried after a burial service in Christ the Saviour’s Cathedral in the heart of Moscow.

      The national actress of the USSR will be laid to rest at the Novodevichy Cemetery next to her husband, the great conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, with whom they lived together for more than 50 years.

      Vishnevskaya grew up in Kronstadt, survived the blockade of Leningrad during World War II; in 1952 she managed to be admitted to the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater, having won a competition for entering a group of trainees.  Thanks to her magnificent soprano Galina Vishnevskaya became one of the leading opera singers of the country.