MOSCOW: Russian opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya, the widow of legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, was buried on Friday alongside her husband in Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery, the RIA Novosti state news agency said.
The soprano known for her iconic interpretations of great opera roles, died Tuesday aged 86, after surviving her husband by five years.
The couple's two daughters Olga and Yelena Rostropovich attended along with hundreds of mourners including the widow of the first Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Naina Yeltsina.
Mourners carried an icon and a portrait of Vishnevskaya in a procession through the cemetery, which is the resting place of many famous Russians including writer Anton Chekhov and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
A choir sang as Vishnevskaya's coffin was placed beside the grave of her husband, surrounded by piles of flowers and wreaths.
President Vladimir Putin sent a wreath as did the Russian government and the president of Azerbaijan, the ex-Soviet country where Rostropovich was born.
The funeral was preceded by a service in Moscow's central Church of Christ the Saviour, attended by close friends and family.
On Wednesday thousands of members of the public came to pay their last respects as the singer lay in state at her Vishnevskaya Opera Centre in Moscow.
The soprano who won fame in Soviet times for her emotionally intense performances of classic and modern works -- had been suffering from heart trouble in recent years.
Her extraordinary life saw her survive the siege of Leningrad in World War II, be forced into foreign exile with her husband in the 1970s, and return in triumph as the Soviet Union crumbled.
Born in what was then Leningrad, Vishnevskaya survived the city's siege by Nazi Germany during World War II, and even served in missile defence troops when she was a teenager.
After studying in Leningrad, she was accepted into Moscow's Bolshoi theatre. She and Rostropovich married in 1955 -- he was her third husband.
Vishnevskaya's dramatic interpretations led some music critics to dub her the Russian Maria Callas.
In a life that saw her rub shoulders with some of the 20th century's great cultural figures, she and her late husband were personal friends of Sergei Prokofiev and Benjamin Britten.
Together with Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya offered support to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who lived with them when he came to Moscow, coming under immense pressure from the authorities.
They were forced to leave the USSR and were eventually stripped of Soviet citizenship in 1978, but came back during the perestroika era under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and recovered Russian citizenship.
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