Лариса Мондрус

Larisa Mondrus (Russian: Лари́са Мо́ндрус, Latvian: Larisa Mondrusa, German: Larissa Mondrus; born 15 November 1943) is a Soviet singer (soprano), who was popular in the USSR in the 1960s. In 1973 she emigrated to West Germany. Mondrus graduated from school and in 1962 started singing in the Riga Variety Orchestra. Soon she was noticed and moved to Moscow, where joined the Eddie Rosner Jazz Orchestra. In 1964 she started performing and recording with the orchestra that was directed by her husband, Egil Schwarz. Her first success was the song "Ticket to Childhood" ("Билет в детство"). From 1968 to 1972 she was a soloist with the Mosconcert concert organization (a Moscow association that organized regular concerts for its artists). One of her most popular songs was "Siniy Lyon" ("Синий лён"), composed by Raimonds Pauls. She was one of the first singers in the Soviet Union to do a dance while singing, something that was not approved of back then, in the 1960s. In 1971, at the whim of S. Lapin, Chairman of the USSR State Committee for Radio and Television (Gosteleradio), Larisa Mondrus, along with several other singers of Jewish descent, was de facto barred from appearing on television. Even though she continued to tour with Egil Schwartz's Orchestra a lot, they finally decided to emigrate and in 1973 emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany, where she continued her career as a singer, recording several albums for Polydor. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.