Russian Opera Essay, Research Paper
Russian Opera
The seeds of a distinctively national art music in Russia are usually dated from the first half of the 19th century. The performance of the opera A Life for the Tsar (1836), by Mikhail GLINKA, is usually cited as the turning point for Russian music (Russia’s national anthem is taken from this opera). In this historical opera, as well as in his subsequent opera Ruslan and Ludmila (1842), the orchestral fantasy Kamarinskaya (1848), and numerous songs, Glinka successfully fused the typical
melodies, harmonies, and rhythms of Russian folk music with the forms and techniques of Italian opera — creating an eclectic but unmistakably national idiom. Glinka’s younger contemporary, Alexander DARGOMYZHSKY, is best known for his
influence on subsequent nationalist composers through his posthumously produced opera The Stone Guest (1872), a radical
attempt to promote musical realism by abandoning the forms and conventions of traditional opera in favor of continuous
recitative.
The FIVE, or the Mighty Five, is the label given to a group of Russian composers that formed during the 1860s. Supported
by the influential critic Vladimir Stasov (1824-1906), the Five — Mily BALAKIREV, Aleksandr BORODIN, Cesar
CUI,Modest MUSORGSKY, and Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV — sought to legitimize the goals and achievements of
nationalistic music and to oppose the dominance of Western musical influences. Although linked by common propagandistic
aims and by the characteristic absence of formal musical education, the composers wrote in differing styles. The most lasting
musical achievements were made by Borodin, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Borodin is noted for his use of Russian
orientalisms in works such as In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880) and his opera Prince Igor. In his numerous operas on
historical and fairy-tale subjects, as well as in the well-known symphonic suite Scheherazade (1891), Rimsky-Korsakov
exploited the unusual modal tendencies of Russian folk music, and his orchestration was colorful and effective.
Musorgsky was undoubtedly the most original composer of the Five. Continuing Dargomyzhsky’s search for musical realism,
he combined an instinctive flair for the nuances of folk music with flexible, textually motivated rhythmic practices and unusual
harmonic juxtapositions in his many songs, his operatic masterpiece Boris Godunov (1869-72), and his suite for piano Pictures
at an Exhibition (1874). Although he was misunderstood by many of his contemporaries, Mussorgsky’s legacy has been
profoundly important for music in the 20th century.
The conspicuous targets of the nationalists were Aleksandr Serov (1820-71), a prominent music critic, Wagnerite, and
opera composer, and Anton RUBINSTEIN, a legendary piano virtuoso as well as a prolific composer. Rubinstein and his
brother Nikolai (1835-81) were responsible for establishing the first music conservatories in Russia, founded on German
models, in Saint Petersburg (1862) and Moscow (1866). Peter Ilich TCHAIKOVSKY was one of the first graduates of the
former and subsequently taught at the latter. Without rejecting his national heritage Tchaikovsky evolved a more cosmopolitan,
romantic, yet highly personal style that won him widespread international popularity. Many of his works–including the six
symphonies, the operas Eugene Onegin (1879) and The Queen of Spades (1890), the ballets Swan Lake (1877), Sleeping
Beauty (1890) and The Nutcracker (1892)–established themselves as repertory classics.
After the October revolution in 1917, many composers and performers chose to leave Russia. Among those who pursued
successful careers in the West were Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951), Nikolay and Aleksandr
TCHEREPNIN, and Serge KOUSSEVITZKY. The unexpected official denunciation (1936) of the highly successful opera
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH (1932) was the first explicit application of socialist
realism to music. Recognizing music to be a powerful weapon in the ideological struggle, this ambiguous doctrine called for
music with a “socialist” content, expressed in a musical language that ordinary people could understand. The formula effectively
banned the modernistic directions characteristic of contemporary Western music and fostered conservative and readily
accessible styles. Shostakovich, one of the first generation of Soviet composers, had achieved early success with his First
Symphony (1925) and subsequent works and was able to reestablish himself spectacularly with his Fifth Symphony (1937).
Mildly dissonant counterpoint, march rhythms, and sensitive orchestration became the hallmarks not only of Shostakovich’s
style but of that of many other Soviet composers as well. Composers who reached artistic maturity during the 1930s and ’40s
included Aram KHATCHATURIAN, Dmitri KABALEVSKY, Yuri Shaporin (1887-1966), and Vissarion Shebalin
(1902-63).
Laurel E. Fay
Bibliography:
1.Abraham, Gerald, Essays on Russian and East European Music (1985);
2.Asafiev, Boris, Russian Music from the Beginning of the 19th Century (1953);
3.Schwarz, Boris, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-81, enl. ed. (1983);
4.Seaman, Gerald, History of Russian Music, vol. 1 (1967);
5.Stasov, Vladimir, Selected Essays on Music, trans. by Florence Jonas (1968; repr. 1980).
Musical samples
Glinka
A Life for the Tsar. Aria of Ivan Susanin by Maxim Mikhailov
Tchaikovsky
Eugene Onegin:
Gremin’s Aria by Mark Reizen (1948)
Lenski’s Aria by Nikolay Gedda
Rimsky-Korsakov
Sadko:
Song of the Viking Guest by Feodor Shaliapin (1927)
Viking Song by Mark Reizen (1952)
Song of the Indian Guest by Ivan Kozlovsky
Song of the Venetian Gest by Pavel Lisitsian
Dargomizhsky
Mermaid. Miller’s Aria by Maxim Mikhailov
Musorgsky
Khovanschina:
Marfa’s Song by Nadezhda Obukhova (1948)
Marfa’s Devination by Nadezhda Obukhova (1941)
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