It was thanks to his
birth into the leisured class in Russia
200 years ago this year, that Glinka
became a composer, a profession unrecognised
in that country during the early years
of the 19th century. He became
the fountain-head of Russian nationalism
based on the Western model. Though brought
up on Russian folk music in the rural
environs of the Smolensk district, his
uncle Afanasy ran an orchestra on Western
lines, staffed by serfs and to which
the young Mikhail was exposed from the
day he heard a clarinet quartet by Crusell
according to the composer himself. During
the 1820s Glinka was in St Petersburg
where he studied, developed his compositional
techniques and apprenticed himself to
an opera company where he encountered
the operas of Rossini. In 1830 he went
to Milan and met Donizetti and Bellini,
and in 1834 to Berlin. By the time he
returned to Russia he was fully cosmopolitan
in his outlook and utterly professional
in his all-round musicianship. He then
set about composing A Life for the
Tsar, the first opera set to a Russian
text on a national subject, under the
influence of the Italian Rossini, the
French Grétry, Méhul,
and Cherubini and the German Beethoven;
all of them ingredients in the mix.
So rather than pin on him the title
of the first Russian composer, it is
better to see him as the first from
that country to have established a European
reputation for himself - Berlioz admired
him and Liszt used his music for transcriptions.
A Life for the Tsar
was first performed on 27 November 1836
and immediately became an obligatory
annual season-opener at Tsar Nicholas
I’s Imperial Opera House; originally
intended to be called Ivan Susanin,
the tsar himself bartered the composer’s
dedication of the work for its renaming.
On 21 February 1939 the reworked version
by Gorodetsky (and now using the composer’s
original title) was given for the first
time at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow,
with all references to loyalty to the
Romanov dynasty replaced by an abstract
commitment to national liberation, as
well as a secular view of the Russian
nation, despite the bizarre consequences
which arose from its retention of the
original historical setting in 1612.
Since 1989 Glasnost and supposed democracy
has restored the original libretto to
Russian performances.
The peasant Ivan Susanin
was a hero of popular resistance to
Polish infiltration following Boris
Godunov’s demise. Susanin’s daughter
Antonida is in love with Sobinin, but
her father will not permit their wedding
to take place until a new Tsar is safely
on the throne, despite reassurances
from Sobinin that the 16 year-old Tsar
Mikhail Romanov has already been popularly
elected. The second act takes place
in the Polish military quarters where
dancing is under way until news is brought
of the Tsar’s election. The Poles are
told that he immediately went into hiding
in a local monastery, and they resolve
to kidnap him. Susanin also has an adopted
orphan, Vanya, who fears that the Poles
will soon arrive in their search for
the new Tsar, but Susanin assures him
that none will betray the young Romanov.
When the soldiers burst in they force
Susanin to lead them to the hiding place,
to which he eventually agrees, though
not without instructing Vanya to warn
the monastery. He then deploys delaying
tactics to give the Tsar time to receive
the warning and escape. Meanwhile Antonida
weeps, knowing the sacrifice her father
will inevitably make. In a forest the
Poles have realised that Susanin has
misled them, but when he knows that
the Tsar is safe he taunts his captors
and they kill him. Sobinin and Vanya,
together with a peasant army arrive
too late to save him, but they fall
upon their Polish murderers. The Epilogue
celebrates both the Tsar’s coronation
and Susanin’s ultimate sacrifice.
Despite what it says
on the back of the box, this is a 2-disc
set not 3, and the booklet has Vassily
Nebolsin as conductor of Act Four, whereas
the back of the box lists him (more
accurately) as contributing only the
Epilogue. What is certain is that this
is a cut version of the opera with 46’33"
lopped off the complete version which
is obtainable on the Capriccio recording
made in Bulgaria in 1986 (issued 1998)
under Ivan Marinov with Ghiuselev in
the title role. It includes all repeats
in the second act orchestral dances,
and Sobinin’s fourth act aria with chorus
as well as Vanya’s which was composed
later, supposedly as a replacement.
The MVT recording under review, however,
was recorded six years before the death
of Stalin, and therefore dispenses with
both the original libretto by Yegor
Rozen and Vasiliy Zhukovsky, and reverts
to the original title of the opera,
A Life for the Tsar. Despite
being over half a century old, quality
is generally good, and from the outset
the juxtaposition of what can only be
Russian music, the combination of unaccompanied
solo tenor and male chorus, (later used
by Tchaikovsky in Onegin as the
peasants return home from the fields
after work) is set against Western concepts
after the women’s chorus, when both
combine in interlocking counterpoint,
and highlights many of the strengths
of this recording. Spiller is in total
command of the demanding role of Antonida,
its taxing coloratura and high lying
tessitura uncompromising from the start,
though some of her harder music later
in the opera is cut. Nelepp’s tenor,
occasionally tight and reedy, nevertheless
successfully tackles some extraordinarily
wide-leaping vocal lines with courage
and bravura. Mikhailov in the title
role may lack many of the darkly rich
textures but he brings authority to
a careful reading, and, despite some
occasional sharp pitch, there are enough
purple patches to make it exciting.
The role of Susanin is really for a
bass-baritone, one for whom the notes
from middle C up a third to E are comfortable,
and one rarely senses that Mikhailov
is here. The trouser role of Vanya needs
a far younger sound than the almost
granny-contralto quality of Antonova.
The chorus are fine, apart from the
final top C which neither lasts the
full eight bars nor holds its pitch,
while the orchestra cope easily with
the demands of a score which belies
its 1836 pedigree in many ways. Only
the ridiculous final bars drowned out
by the bells of Moscow in 1812
fashion give it all the quality of a
Gubbay-like Sunday night Royal Albert
Hall jamboree, giving an unfortunate
final impression of a work which requires,
and largely gets, stylish treatment.
Christopher Fifield
Chorus and Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre/Alexander
Melik-Pashaev/Vassily Nebolsin (Epilogue) (conductors)
