Concordia Antarova (, also known as Cora Antarova, 25 April 1886 O.S./13 April 1886 (N. S.) – 6 February 1959) was a Russian contralto who starred in the Bolshoi Theater for more than twenty years. After her singing career ended, she wrote theosophical texts. She was recognized as an Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1933. Early life Concordia Evgenievna Antarova was born on 13 April 1886 in Warsaw, Russian Poland. Her father was an employee of the Department of Public Education. Her mother, who gave language lessons, was the first cousin of Arkady Vladimirovich Tyrkov and the niece of Sophia Perovskaya, two of the members of Narodnaya Volya, who had attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Her father died when Antarova was eleven years old, and her mother died when she was in the sixth grade, aged fourteen. In spite of being orphaned, she completed her studies at Gymnasium in 1901. Deciding to enter a convent, Antarova sang in the choir and began to develop an interest in performing music. John of Kronstadt advised her that her vocation was to be part of the world rather than in the convent. When school friends were able to gather sufficient funds for her to continue studying, Antarova moved to Saint Petersburg. In the 1901–1902 season, she performed as Solokha and the female innkeeper in Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith at the Saint Petersburg People's Hall. Enrolling in the Bestuzhev Courses, she graduated from the History and Philology Faculty 1904. Though she wanted to continue with music studies, Antarova had to work to be able to pay for lessons with at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. She took a job as a teacher in the Nikolaevskaya Railway's Alexandrovsky foundry school, riding the train an hour each way to teach and back for her singing lessons. The lack of food and fatigue led to her developing bronchial asthma, which plagued her the rest of her life. In 1907, she graduated from the Conservatory and was sent to the Mariinsky Theatre to audition. Of the 160 singers, she was the only one hired. Career Antarova performed as the mezzo-soprano soloist for a year at the Mariinsky, before being hired as a replacement for another singer who worked at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Her debut in 1908 was as Ratmir in the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila by Mikhail Glinka. From 1908 to 1930