Deborah Pantofel-Nechetskaya (1904 - 1995) was born in Omsk into the family of an artist and engraver. In her youth she studied piano and at the Omsk Music College she studied piano and voice. As a pianist, Pantofel-Nechetskaya worked at the Omsk Drama Theatre, later in the Leningrad theatre group «The Blue Blouse»; at one time she was a «tapper» (she accompanied silent films on the piano) in the Omsk cinema. Between 1926 and 1931 she studied singing at the Leningrad Conservatory under the outstanding singer Evgenia Bronskaya. In the summer of 1928, Pantofel-Nechetskaya made her operatic debut at the Omsk Drama Theatre as Marguerite (Gounod’s «Faust»), with the famous Mariinsky Bass Vladimir Kastorsky in the role of Méphistophélès. In 1929, the singer made her debut concert tour of Siberia. this time her partner was another outstanding singer, the baritone Nikolai Shevelev. From 1931 Pantofel-Nechetskaya was a soloist with the Omsk Radio, and between 1933 and 1935 she was a soloist with the Novosibirsk Radio and the Theatre of Musical Comedy (she performed there in the operettas «The Geisha» by S. Jones, «Der Bettelstudent» by K. Millöcker and «Das Veilchen vom Montmartre» by I. Kálmán).
From 1936 to 1939 she was a soloist with the Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) Opera and Ballet Theatre. Here she performed the roles of Gilda and Violetta («Rigoletto», «La Traviata»), Rosina («Il barbiere di Siviglia») and Juliet (Gounod’s «Roméo et Juliette»). At the same time, the singer gave many concerts in halls, clubs, in military units and at various enterprises in the Urals and Siberia. In 1939, Pantofel-Nechetskaya won the first prize at the First All-Union Competition for Popular Artists in Moscow.
From 1940 to 1965, Deborah Pantofel-Nechetskaya was a soloist with the Moscow State Philharmonic and performed in numerous concerts. She possessed an agile and flexible voice with a wide range, soft lyrical colouring, and an impeccable purity of intonation which aroused the admiration of her listeners. In 1941, Reinhold Glière dedicated the Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra to the singer. In the same year, she made her debut on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in the operas «Rigoletto» and «La Traviata», and for the duration of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), she would often perform there. Pantofel-Nechetskaya toured throughout the cities of the Soviet Union, and after the war she went on tour abroad - to Czechoslovakia, Romania and Iran. From the 1960s, she taught at GITIS (1960-1965) and at the Moscow Conservatory (1965-1978).
