Alla Baianova

Alla Nikolayevna Bayanova was a Russian Romance singer sometimes compared with Édith Piaf for her simple yet dramatic style of performance. Bayanova was born in Kishinev in the family of an opera singer, who moved to Paris in 1918 after Bessarabia decided to unite with Romania. She debuted on the stage as an assistant to her father in 1923, aged nine. By 1927, she was already performing solo. A major step forward in her career was when she assisted Alexander Vertinsky in his famous show at the Hermitage Restaurant, Montmartre. Two years later, her family moved to Belgrade, while Bayanova went on touring Germany, Greece, Palestine, and Egypt. In 1931, she got acquainted with Pyotr Leshchenko, a foremost Russian singer of the time, who helped her to join the Pavilion Russe in Bucharest. She married a local aristocrat, George Ypsilanti, and made several recordings of tangos. After her divorce from Ypsilanti, she signed a contract with the Polish recording company "Syrena-Electro". In March 1941, Bayanova was arrested by the Romanian authorities and interned into a concentration camp for having performed in the Russian language. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_Ba...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)