Opera Singer. He was an esteemed bass soloist of Moscow's Bolshoi Opera for nearly 50 years, noted as a superb singing actor. In 1976 he was named People's Artist of the USSR. Artur Arturovich Eisen was born in Moscow, into a family of Latvian nationalists. After World War II he studied acting at the Shchukin Theatre School and singing at the Gnessin State Musical College and the Moscow Conservatory. From 1949 to 1956 he was a soloist of the Red Army Chrorus (now the Alexandrov Ensemble), with whom he made his earliest recordings, among them "The Song of the Volga Boatmen". He debuted with the Bolshoi as Don Basilio in "The Barber of Seville" in December 1956, and the following month became a permanent member of the company. While Eisen never joined the ranks of the greatest Russian basses, he was an excellent singer, winning international praise for his warm, engaging tone onstage and in recital. His repertory included the title role and Varlaam in "Boris Godunov", the title roles of "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" and "Aleko", Mephistopheles in "Faust", Khovansky in "Khovanshchina", Farlaf in "Ruslan and Ludmila", Galitsky in "Prince Igor", and Baptista in "The Taming of the Shrew", as well as German and French art songs and Russian folk material. In Muradeli's opera "October" (1964) Eisen broke a Soviet taboo by becoming the first to portray Lenin as a singing character, and he also recorded Shostakovich's controversial Symphony No. 13 ("Babi Yar"), for bass, male chorus and orchestra, under the direction of Kirill Kondrashin, who premiered the work. He retired at 75 in 2002, leaving a considerable body of audio and video recordings. Although he was eligible for an honor grave at Moscow's prestigious Novodevichy Cemetery, Eisen chose to be buried with his parents at Vagankovskoe.