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Russian opera is the art ofopera inRussia. Operas by composers of Russian origin, written or staged outside of Russia, also belong to this category, as well as the operas of foreign composers written or intended for the Russian scene. These are not onlyRussian-language operas. There are examples of Russian operas written in French, English, Italian,Latin,Ancient Greek, Japanese, or the multitude of languages of the nationalities that were part of theEmpire and theSoviet Union.
Russian opera includes the works of such composers asGlinka,Mussorgsky,Borodin,Tchaikovsky,Rimsky-Korsakov,Stravinsky,Prokofiev andShostakovich.
Searching for its typical and characteristic features, the Russian opera (and Russian music as a whole), has often been under strong foreign influence. Italian, French, and German operas have served as examples, even when composers sought to introduce special, national elements into their work. This dualism, to a greater or lesser degree, has persisted throughout the whole history of Russian opera.[citation needed]
| Patrons |
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| Anna of Russia (1693–1740) Elizabeth of Russia (1709–1762) Catherine II of Russia (1729–1796) Nikolai Sheremetev (1751–1809) |
Opera came to Russia in the 18th century. At first there were Italian language operas presented byItalian operatroupes. Later some foreign composers serving to theRussian Imperial Court began writing Russian-language operas, while some Russian composers were involved into writing of the operas in Italian and French. And only at the beginning of the 1770s were the first modest attempts of the composers of Russian origin to compose operas to the Russianlibrettos made. This was not a real creation of Russian national opera per se, but rather a weak imitation ofItalian, French orGerman examples. But nevertheless, these experiments were important, and paved the way for the great achievements of 19th and 20th centuries.
Originating in Italy in c1600, opera spread all over Europe and reached Russia in 1731, when the King ofPoland andElector ofSaxonyAugust II the Strong (based inDresden) 'loaned' his Italian opera troupe to the RussianEmpress Anna for the celebration of her coronation in Moscow. The first opera shown in Russia wasCalandro byGiovanni Alberto Ristori (1692–1753), performed in Moscow in 1731 under the direction of the composer and his father Tommaso, with 13 actors and nine singers including Ludovica Seyfried, Margherita Ermini and Rosalia Fantasia.[1]
After that Italian opera troupes were welcomed to Russia for the entertaining of the Empress and her Court. In 1735 a big Italian opera troupe led by a composerFrancesco Araja was invited for the first time to work inSaint Petersburg. The first opera given by them was Araja'sLa forza dell'amore e dell'odio, with a text by Francesco Prata, staged on 8 February [OS 29 January], 1736 asSila lyubvi i nenavisti (The Power of Love and Hatred).Araja’s next two productions were theoperas seriaIl finto Nino, overo La Semiramide riconosciuta to the text by Francesco Silvani given on 9 February 1737 [OS 28 January], Saint Petersburg andArtaserse to the text byPietro Metastasio, performed on 9 February 1738 [OS 28 January] in Saint Petersburg.Araja spent around 25-year in Russia and wrote at least 14 operas for the Russian Court.
In 1742, in connection with the celebration of the coronation of EmpressElizaveta Petrovna in Moscow the operaTito Vespasiano [La clemenza di Tito] byJohann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783) was staged. A new theatre was built especially for this event. In 1743 at "Zimnij Dvorets", the (Winter Palace) in Saint Petersburg, instead of a small hall of "Comedie et opere" was built a new Opera House (architectBartolomeo Rastrelli) that held about a thousand persons.
The nextopera seria byArajaSeleuco, text byGiuseppe Bonecchi was given on 7 May [OS 26 April], 1744 in Moscow as part of a double celebration of the anniversary of the coronation ofElizaveta Petrovna and conclusion of peace with Sweden.
The staging ofAraja’sopera seriaBellerofonte, text byGiuseppe Bonecchi (9 December 1750 [OS 28 November], Saint Petersburg) was notable for the participation of a Russian singer from "pevchie" of the Court Capella, Mark Poltoratski, who played the role of Ataman, a nobleman of Kingdom of Likia.
The first opera written in Russian wasAraja’sTsefal i Prokris (Cephalus and Prokris, libretto byAlexander Sumarokov) that was staged at Saint Petersburg on 7 March, [OS 27 February], 1755.
The second opera set to a Russian text wasAlceste, 1758, libretto byAlexander Sumarokov) by German composerHermann Raupach (1728–1778) also serving to the Russian Court. Raupach spent 18 years in Russia and died in Saint Petersburg in 1778.
In 1757 a private opera enterprise directed byGiovanni Battista Locatelli (1713 – c. 1770) was invited to Saint Petersburg. They had shown an opera every week for the court, and two-three times a week they were allowed to give open public performances. The repertoire was mostly of Italianopera buffa. For the first three years the troupe had presented the seven operas byBaldassare Galuppi (1706–1785) includingIl mondo della luna (The World of the Moon),Il Filosofo di campagna (The Village Philosopher), andIl mondo alla roversa, ossia Le donne che commandono (The Worlds Upside Down, or Women Command).
In the 1760–80s in Russia there were working in turnVenetianGaluppi,Manfredini fromPistoia,Traetta fromBitonto nearBarri,Paisiello fromTaranto,Sarti,Cimarosa fromCampania, andSpaniardMartin y Soler. Each of them brought an important contribution, producing operas to the Italian as well as Russian libretti. Here are listed some of the operas written and premiered in Russia:
Vincenzo Manfredini (1737–1799) spent 12 years in Russia and died in Saint Petersburg. The son and pupil of famous baroque composerFrancesco Manfredini, he was a music teacher forPavel Petrovich who later became Emperor of Russia. For the Russian Imperial Court Manfredini wrote five operas including:Semiramide (1760, Saint Petersburg),L'Olimpiade (1762 Moscow) andCarlo Magno (1763 Saint Petersburg).
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Tommaso Traetta (1727–1779) was amaestro di cappella at theRussian Imperial Court for eight years (1768–1775, and wrote there five operas, including:Astrea placata (1770 Saint Petersburg),Antigone (1772 Saint Petersburg), andLe quattro stagioni e i dodici mesi dell'anno (1776St Petersburg).
Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816), a famous Neapolitan composer of more than 100 operasseria andbuffa, he spent in Russia eight years (1776–1783), where he wrote 12 operas includingNitteti (1777 Saint Petersburg),Lucinda e Armidoro (1777 Saint Petersburg),Il barbiere di Siviglia, ovvero La precauzione inutile (1782Hermitage Theatre), andIl mondo della luna (1782Kamenny Island Theatre).
Giuseppe Sarti (1729–1802), a composer of about 40 operas, he spent in Russia eighteen years (1784–1802). After being for eight years amaestro di cappella at the Imperial Court, he spent the next four years at the service of PrinceGrigori Alexandrovich Potemkin at his estate in Southern Russia. Then he returned to the Court. In 1801 he solicited permission to return, because his health was broken. The emperorAlexander I dismissed him in 1802 with a liberal pension. Sarti died inBerlin. His most successful operas in Russia wereArmida e Rinaldo andThe Early Reign of Oleg (Nachal'noye upravleniye Olega),[2] for the latter of which the empress herself wrote the libretto. Among the nine operas written in Russia are also:Gli amanti consolati (1784 Saint Petersburg),I finti eredi (1785 Saint Petersburg,Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre),Castore e Polluce (1786Hermitage Theatre) andLa famille indienne en Angleterre (1799 Saint Petersburg,Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre).
Domenico Cimarosa, (1749–1801) another famous Neapolitan composer, singer, violinist, harpsichordist, conductor ant teacher, who composed about 75 operas, was amaestro di cappella in Russia for five years (1787–1791), where he wrote:La felicità inaspettata (1788Hermitage Theatre),La vergine del sol'e (1788?Hermitage Theatre; 1789 Saint Petersburg,Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre) andLa Cleopatra (Cleopatra e Marc Antonio 1789Hermitage Theatre)
Vicente Martín y Soler (1754–1806) a Spanish organist and composer of 21 operas and 5 ballets, he settled in Russia c1788, where he was called "Martini". He wrote there:Gore-Bogatyr Kosometovich (libretto byCatherine II of Russia, 1789Hermitage Theatre) with overture on three Russian tunes,Pesnolyubie (1790Hermitage Theatre), andLa festa del villagio (1798Hermitage Theatre).
Two of his operas premiered in Vienna, but also staged in Russia,Una cosa rara, o sia Bellezza ed onestà (The Rare Thing) andL'arbore di Diana (Diana's Tree) were especially popular. The first of them performed in Russian translation ofIvan Dmitrievsky had some elements of the antifeudal directivity. He died in Saint Petersburg in January 1806.
Ivan Kerzelli (also known as I. I. Kerzelli, or Iosif Kertsel) was a representative of a big family of foreign musiciansKerzelli (probably ofCzech origin), settled in Russia in the 18th century. He is regarded as a composer of a few famous operas:Lyubovnik – koldun (The Lover-Magician 1772 Moscow),Rozana i Lyubim (Rozana und Lyubim 1778, Moscow),Derevenskiy vorozheya (The Village Wizard c. 1777 Moscow) (Overture and songs were printed in Moscow 1778; They were the first opera fragments printed in Russia) andGuljanye ili sadovnik kuskovskoy (Promenade or the Gardener from Kuskovo 1780 or 1781Kuskovo, Private Theatre of CountNikolai Sheremetev).
Antoine Bullant (also known as Antoine or Jean Bullant, 1750–1821), another composer ofCzech origin settled in Russia in 1780 wrote a large number of operas with Russianlibrettos, often within Russian national settings. He was especially famous for hiscomic operaSbitenshchik (Сбитеньщик —Sbiten Vendor),comic opera in 3 acts, written to the libretto byYakov Knyazhnin (remake ofMolière'sL'école des femmes). The opera was staged 1783 or 1784 in Saint Petersburg, at theBolshoi Kamenny Theatre, and was played until 1853.
There were also extremely popular the operas byBelgian/FrenchAndré Ernest Modeste Grétry (1741–1813), likeL'Amitié à l'épreuve (first staged 1779,Kuskovo theatre) orLes Mariages samnites that was performed during 12 years (since 1885,Kuskovo,Ostankino theatres) with serf-sopranoPraskovya Zhemchugova at the private opera ofNikolai Sheremetev.
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| Ristori troupe (performed in 1731, Moscow) Araja troupe (1735–1759) Locatelli private entreprise (1757–1760s) Sheremetev private theatre (1751–1809) Bolshoi Theatre Mikhail Medoks (orMichael Maddox) theatre (from 1776) Imperial opera and ballet theatre (from 1783,St Petersburg) |
Two talented young RussiansBerezovsky andBortniansky were sent byCatherine II to Italy to study art ofmusic composition.
Maksym Berezovsky (1745–1777) went to Italy in the spring of 1769 to train with PadreGiovanni Battista Martini at theBologna Philharmonic Academy, where he graduated with distinction. He wrote an opera seriaDemofoonte to the Italian libretto byPietro Metastasio for the carnival atLivorno (staged February 1773).
Dmytro Bortniansky (1751–1825), a pupil ofHermann Raupach andBaldassare Galuppi, went to Italy following his teacher Galuppi. In Italy, Bortniansky gained considerable success composing operas:Creonte (1776) andAlcide (1778) inVenice, andQuinto Fabio (1779) atModena.Bortniansky returned to the court at Saint Petersburg in 1779 where he composed four more operas (all in French, withlibretti by Franz-Hermann Lafermière):Le Faucon (1786),Le Fete du Seigneur (1786),Don Carlos (1786), andLe Fils-Rival ou La Moderne Stratonice (1787).
At the same time in Russia, a successful one-act operaAnyuta (Chinese Theatre, 6 September [OS 26 August], 1772) was created to the text byMikhail Ivanovich Popov. Music was a selection of popular songs specified in the libretto. It is a story about a girl called Anyuta, brought up in a peasants’ household, who in fact turned out to be of noble birth, and the story of her love for a nobleman, Victor, eventually ending happily, with wedding bells ringing. The score does not survive and the composer of it is unknown, however, sometimes it was attributed toVasily Pashkevich or even toYevstigney Fomin who that time was just 11 years old.
The music of another successful Russian operaMelnik – koldun, obmanshchik i svat (The Miller who was a Wizard, a Cheat and a Match-maker, text byAlexander Ablesimov, Moscow, 1779), on a subject resemblingRousseau’sLe Devin du village, is attributed to a theatre violin player and conductorMikhail Matveyevich Sokolovsky (c. 1756–?). Later the music was revised byYevstigney Fomin.
Vasily Pashkevich (1742–1797), a Russian composer was famous for his comic operaThe Miser. Its roles are: Scriagin, Liubima’s guardian; Liubima, his niece; Milovid, her beloved; Marfa, the servant girl that Scriagin is in love with; Prolaz, Milovid’s manservant who is in Scriagin’s service. Accordingly the speech and the names of the characters ofMolière's comedy were turned into Russian as well as the music that combines some features of Western form with typically Russian melodies. Another his operaFevey was written to the libretto byCatherine II. Other operas are:The Carriage Accident (Neschastye ot karety, 1779 Saint Petersburg,Karl Kniper Theatre,St Petersburg Bazaar (Sankt Peterburgskiy Gostinyi Dvor, 1782 Saint Petersburg),Kniper Theatre,The Burden Is Not Heavy if It Is Yours (Svoya nosha ne tyanet, 1794),The Early Reign of Oleg (Nachal'noye upravleniye Olega, libretto by Catherine II, 1790 Saint Petersburg)– together withGiuseppe Sarti and C. Cannobio),Fedul and His Children (Fedul s det'mi, libretto by Catherine II, 1791 Saint Petersburg) – together withMartin y Soler),The Pasha of Tunis (Pasha tunisskiy, 1782 libretto byMikhail Matinsky) andYou Shall Be Judged As You Lived (Kak pozhivyosh', tak i proslyvyosh, 1792) — rev. ofSt Petersburg Bazaar.
| Librettists |
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| Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino (1672–1742) Giuseppe Bonecchi [?-?] Alexander Sumarokov (1717–1774) Catherine II (1729–1796) Alexander Ablesimov (1742–1783) Mikhail Ivanovich Popov (1742–1790) Yakov Knyazhnin (1742/1740–1791) Mikhail Matinsky (1750–c. 1820) Vladislav Ozerov (1769–1816) |
Italian-trainedYevstigney Fomin (1761–1800) composed about 30 operas including the most successful opera-melodramaOrfey i Evridika to the text byYakov Knyazhnin. Among his other operas are:The Novgorod Hero Boyeslayevich (Novgorodskiy bogatyr’ Boyeslayevich, text byCatherine II, 1786 Saint Petersburg),The Coachmen at the Relay Station (Yamshchiki na podstave 1787 Saint Petersburg),Soirées (Vecherinki, ili Gaday, gaday devitsa, 1788 Saint Petersburg),Magician, Fortune-teller and Match-maker (Koldun, vorozheya i svakha 1789 Saint Petersburg),The Miller who was a Wizard, a Cheat and a Match-maker (Melnik – koldun, obmanshchik i svat, 1779 Moscow, originally:Mikhail Sokolovsky),The Americans (Amerikantsy, comic opera, 1800 Saint Petersburg),Chloris and Milo (Klorida i Milon, 1800 Saint Petersburg), andThe Golden Apple (Zolotoye yabloko, 1803 Saint Petersburg).
The 19th century was thegolden age of Russian opera. It began with a success of a massive and slowly developing operatic project: the operaLesta, dneprovskaya rusalka and its three sequels (1803–1807, first in Saint Petersburg) based on the German romantic-comic pieceDas Donauweibchen byFerdinand Kauer (1751–1831) with the Russian text and additional music by Russianized Venetian immigrantCatterino Cavos (1775–1840) andStepan Davydov (1777–1825).
The next success was a patriotic operaIvan Susanin (1815) byCavos based on an episode fromRussian history.
This success was continued with the brilliant operatic career ofAlexey Verstovsky (1799–1862), who composed more 30 opera-vaudevilles and 6 grand-operas includingAskold's Grave (Askoldova mogila, first performed in 1835) that received about 200 performances in Saint Petersburg and 400 in Moscow only for the first 25 years.
However the most important events in the history of Russian opera were two great operas byMikhail Glinka (1804–1857)A Life for the Tsar, (Zhizn za tsarya, originally entitledIvan Susanin 1836) andRuslan and Lyudmila (based on the tale byAlexander Pushkin, 1842. These two works inaugurated a new era in Russian music and a burgeoning of Russian national opera.
Since these, opera became a leading genre for the most of Russian composers. Glinka was followed byAlexander Dargomyzhsky (1813–1869) with hisRusalka (1856) and revolutionaryThe Stone Guest (Kamenny gost, completed byRimsky-Korsakov and premiered in 1872).
Other composers were:
Russian opera reached its apogee with the works byModest Mussorgsky and his antipodePyotr Tchaikovsky.
Modest Mussorgsky's (1839–1881)Boris Godunov remains the greatest masterpiece of Russian opera, despite what many consider to be serious technical faults and a bewildering array of versions (Original Version of 1869, Revised Version of 1872,Rimsky-Korsakov Edition of 1908,Shostakovich Edition of 1940, etc.). His other operas were left unfinished:
Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) completed ten operas including the most famousEugene Onegin (Yevgeny Onegin), 1877–1878, 1879 Moscow andThe Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama), 1890, 1890 Saint Petersburg, which now belong to the world'sstandard repertoire. His other operas are:
Not less important wasAleksandr Borodin’s (1833–1887)Prince Igor – (Knyaz Igor, completed byRimsky-Korsakov andAlexander Glazunov, 1890).
ProlificNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) completed fifteen operas, the most significant achievements of the art of opera in Russia at the end of the century. The most notable of them are:
The last three of them already belong to the 20th-century Russian opera.
There were built a lot of new opera theatres includingBolshoi Theatre (opened since 1825 Moscow), andMariinsky Theatre, opened since 1860 Saint Petersburg).
The history of 19th century Russian opera could be observed in the selected list of premieres at the Saint Petersburg theatres:
Mariinsky Theatre (since 1860)
Mamontov's Private Russian Opera established in 1885.Savva Mamontov discovered talent ofChaliapin, commissioned designs fromMikhail Vrubel,Konstantin Korovin,Natalia Goncharova andIvan Bilibin, staged the late operas byRimsky Korsakov.
Opera spread to the provincial centres ofKiev (1867), Odessa (1887) andKharkiv (1880).
The political collisions of the 20th century divided Russian opera composers into those who managed to escape to the West, successfully or not, and those who continued to live in not the particular friendly atmosphere of the Soviet and Post-Soviet regimes. And nevertheless, the process of producing new operas was not diminished, but just the opposite, it was immensely grown.
Zimin Opera established in 1904,Sergei Diaghilev'sSaisons Russes began in Paris in 1913.
Vladimir Rebikov (1866–1920) composer of more than 10 operas is best of all known for his operaThe Christmas Tree (Yolka, 1894–1902) in which he presented his ideas of "melo-mimics" and "rhythm-declamation" (seemelodeclamation).
Sergey Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) completed three operas:
All three operas were staged at the Bolshoi Theatre. He began but did not finish the fourthMonna Vanna (1907, 1st act in a vocal score) afterMaurice Maeterlinck who refused to give permission to the composer for use of his text. These operas, written on the border between two centuries, rather belong to the world of the romantic opera of the past. Escaping Russia in 1917 Rachmaninoff never returned to operatic projects again.
Unlike him,Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) had been returning to this genre again and again, full of fresh and innovative ideas. Sometimes it is difficult to qualify these works as pure operas but rather "opera-ballets", "opera-cantatas", or "music theatre". Here is the list:
Sergei Prokofiev’s (1891–1953) operas are full of humour, wit, and novelty. Here is the list of his completed operas:
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was another great opera composer struggling all his life in the clutch of the communist ideology. Hissatirical operaThe Nose, after the completely absurd story byGogol was criticized in 1929 byRAPM as "formalist". His second operaLady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District performed in 1934 with an enormous success was condemned by the authorities even more harshly. This forced him to recompose it much later, in 1962, asKaterina Izmailova in a style more simplified and conventional to meet the requirements of the new rulers of the regime.Shostakovich was involved in many more operatic projects.
There were a lot more of the composers about the same generation, who had managed to create hundreds of operas. Some of them shared the same problems with Shostakovich and Prokofiev who returned to live in Soviet Russia and were deadly embraced by its suffocative regime. Others were on the opposite side, serving the suffocating roles. A serious condemnation and persecution of theSoviet Union's foremost composers, such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and many others, had emerged in 1948 in connection to the opera byVano Muradeli (1908–1970),Velikaya druzhba (The Great Friendship); seeZhdanov Doctrine.
Here is just a shortlist of the opera composers of those times:
Also:Vladimir Shcherbachev,Sergei Vasilenko,Vladimir Fere,Vladimir Vlasov,Kirill Molchanov,Alexander Kholminov, etc. (see:Russian opera articles#20th century).
The next generations who found themselves already in the Post-Stalin epoch had their own specific problems. The ideological and stylistic control and limitation of creative freedom by the authorities and older colleagues-composers in the hierarchical structures of theUnion of Composers made almost impossible the innovation and experiment in any field of musical art. It was a feeling that old bad times returned again when in 1979 at the Sixth Congress of theComposers' Union, its leaderTikhon Khrennikov denounced seven composers (thereafter known as the "Khrennikov Seven"), who for some reason or other had been played in the West – there were at least 4 opera composers among them.
As a result, even quite new phenomena appeared: a "samizdat (underground) opera" (seeNikolai Karetnikov). Some of these operas still never been performed, others luckily received their premieres in the West, and only a few found their place at the operatic stages of the homeland. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not improve this hopeless situation much.
The list of the composers who contributed to the development of Russian opera nearer to the end of the 20th century:
Also:Nikolai Sidelnikov,Andrei Petrov,Sandor Kallosh,Leonid Hrabovsky,Alexander Vustin,Gleb Sedelnikov,Merab Gagnidze,Alexander Tchaikovsky,Vasily Lobanov,Dmitri N. Smirnov,Leonid Bobylev,Vladimir Tarnopolsky, and so on (see:Russian opera articles#20th century).
The Russian opera is continuing its development in the 21st century. It began with the noisy premieres of two comic operas, whose genre could be described as "opera-farce":
The first wasTsar Demyan –a frightful opera performance (a collective project of the five participants: composersLeonid Desyatnikov andVyacheslav Gaivoronsky fromSaint Petersburg,Iraida Yusupova andVladimir Nikolayev from Moscow, and the creative collective "Kompozitor," (a pseudonym for the well-known music critic Pyotr Pospelov) to the libretto by Elena Polenova after a folk-dramaTsar Maksimilyan, premiere 20 June 2001Mariinski Theatre, Saint Petersburg. Prize "Gold Mask, 2002" and "Gold Soffit, 2002".
Another operaThe Children of Rosenthal byLeonid Desyatnikov to the libretto byVladimir Sorokin, was commissioned by theBolshoi Theatre and premiered on 23 March 2005.
