 He studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Nikolai Malko and Konstantin Saradzhev.He was artistic director of the Little Leningrad Opera Theatre in 1936-43 and the principal conductor at the Kirov Theatre in 1944-53, where he conducted the première of Sergei Prokofiev's "Betrothal in a Monastery" on 3 November 1946.He moved to the Bolshoi Theatre in 1954.