[ Pentatone SACD / SACD ]
Release Date: Wednesday 5 July 2006
This item is only available to us via Special Import.
DSD recorded
Hybrid/SACD playable on all compact disc players
During the eighteenth century, especially at the time of Catherine the Great, Russia enjoyed a lively opera life; however, it was not until the nineteenth century that the national Russian opera was created. Musical life at the court of the Czar was predominantly oriented towards the West and attracted, for example, many Italian composers to St. Petersburg. The works they wrote there were also mostly based on Italian libretti, and if a Russian opera was ever performed, it followed on musically in the tradition of the operas that could be heard in Naples, Milan or Vienna.
A slow change came about in this situation during the first half of the nineteenth century, after Russia also began to be influenced by the sense of nationhood which was spreading through great parts of Europe in that period. Furthermore, this was the time during which the well-to-do middle class began to participate increasingly in the cultural life, and therefore, it is not just a coincidence that the birth of the national Russian opera more or less concurred with the opening of the 'Great' or 'Bolshoi' Theatre in Moscow in 1825.
Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
A Life for the Czar
Act 2: Bog vojnyi posle bitv…(After the battle the god of war) - Polonaise and chorus
Act 4: Tchujut pravdu!(They sense the truth!) - Ivan Susanin's aria
Vladimir Matorin - bass
Alexander Dargomizhsky (1813-1869)
Rusalka
Act 3: Nevol'no k etim grustnyim beregam..(Some unknown power) - Prince's cavatina
Act 3: Chto eto znachit? (What does this mean?) - Mad scene
Mikhail Gubsky (Prince) - tenor
Alexander Naumenko (Miller) - bass
Male chorus
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Iolanthe
Net, charyi lask krasyi myatezhnoj(No, the charms of a voluptuous beauty)(Vaudémont's Romance)
Vsevolod Grivnov - tenor
Pique Dame (Queen of Spades)
Act 3: Uzh polnoch blizitsya (It is close on midnight already) - Lisa's aria
Elena Zelenskaya - soprano
Mazeppa
Act 2: O Marija, Marija - Mazeppa's arioso
Yuri Nechaev - baritone
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Aleko
Volšébnoy síloy pesnopén'ya(The magic power of song) - Old Gipsy's Story
Taras Shtonda - bass
Male chorus
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Prince Igor
Act 2: Ni sna ne otdykha (No sleep no rest) Prince Igor's aria (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov)
Act 2: Zdorov li, knyaz? (Are you in good health, Prince?)
Konchak' s aria
Act 2: Gey, privesti syuda! (Hey, bring the captive girls here!)Recitativo (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov)
Act 2: Polovtsian Dances
Yuri Nechaev (Prince Igor) - baritone
Valery Gilmanov (Konchak) - bass
Chorus