A 100% Russian feast - An all-Russian cast in this very Russian opera of Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the finest Russian opera composers (and still neglected in this field).

A must for opera fans and everybody with a taste for dramatic, highly romantic and athmospheric music with more then a touch of couleur locale.

Very few CD competitors in this repertoire, and certainly not in this price range. Rimsky-Korsakov’s tenth opera, The Tsar’s Bride moves away from the fairytale tableauxstyle of opera in which he had triumphed. This is a grand narrative in the Verdian style. That said, the musical language is unmistakably Russian, with a motif (Slava) running like a thread throughout the score. This motto can also be heard in Boris Godunov, Beethoven’s second ‘Razumovsky’ Quartet, and Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa. The score also displays Rimsky’s mastery of contrapuntal techniques, and of course his extraordinary use of the orchestra combine to produce a ravishing sound.

The opera, although successful in the early years of the 20th century, and throughout the early Soviet period, fell into neglect by midcentury as did most of his stage work. Galina Vishnevskaya, the great Russian soprano did much to restore the fortunes of this masterpiece with her searing interpretations of poor deranged Marfa (the wife of Ivan the Terrible). After noticing a mad woman on the streets of Leningrad after the siege, she wrote ‘I was deeply affected by her intensity and the despair of her introverted gaze. It was as if she were trying to recall something, straining to make out, in the depths of a bottomless chasm, something known to her alone.’

Artists

Ekaterina Kudriavchenko (Marfa), Arkady Mishenkin (Ivan Likov), Vladislav Verestnikov (Grigory Gryaznoy), Nina Terentieva (Lyubasha), Vladimir Kudriashov (Bomelius), Pyotr Gluboky (Vasily Sobakin), Elena Okolysheva (Dunyasha), Irina Udalova (Saburova), Nikolai Nizienko (Grigory Malyuta-Skuratov), Nina Larionova (Servant), Tatiana Pechuria (Petrovna), Vladislav Pashinsky (Coachman) & Yuri Markelov (Young Lad)

Sveshnikov Russian Academic Choir & Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, Andrey Chistiakov