works of Alexander Pushkin. His first success was the romantic poem Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820), which Glinka used for his opera of the same name, first performed in 1842. Pushkin produced not only poetry, but essays, blank-verse historical dramas, such as Boris Godunov, and novels in verse like Eugene Onegin (1830). Both Boris and Onegin were ...
was performed at St Petersburg on 10 December 1896. Composed: 1868–69; rev. 1871–72; rev. 1873 Premiered: 1874, St Petersburg (rev. version) Libretto by the composer, after Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin Prologue Boris Godunov, regent of Muscovy, has instigated the murder of Tsar Fyodor’s brother Dmitry. In 1598, after Fyodor’s death and the withdrawal to a monastery of ...
device in seventeenth-century opera, but they have been monopolized by this one, which has been called the most moving of them all. As before, Tchaikovsky went to Pushkin for his story and Onegin was based on his verse novel, dating from 1830. The first, amateur, performance of Eugene Onegin took place at the Maly Theatre ...
‘Ruslan and Ludmilla’ Composed: 1837–42 Premiered: 1842, St Petersburg Libretto by Konstantin Bakhturin, Valerina Shirov and various others, after Alexander Pushkin Act I Everyone celebrates the marriage of Lyudmila to the knight Ruslan. Her rejected admirers Farlaf and Ratmir are also present. As Lyudmila’s father Svyetozar blesses the couple, a thunderbolt is heard and darkness falls. When ...
Composed: 1907–09 Premiered: 1909, Moscow Libretto by Vladimir Nikolayevich Bel’sky after Alexander Pushkin Prologue An astrologer warns the audience that the story has a moral. Act I King Dodon’s country is surrounded by enemies. He is not satisfied by the advice offered by his sons, Guidon and Afron, or by General Polkan. The astrologer offers a magic golden ...
The Queen of Spades, based on another story by Pushkin, was Tchaikovsky’s penultimate opera and one in which western influences were particularly evident. It was first produced at the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg on 19 December 1890. However, 20 years passed before it was staged at the Metropolitan Opera, New York on 5 March 1910 and ...
Composed: 1866–69, completed by Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov 1870 Premiered: 1872, St Petersburg Libretto set directly to Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin’s verse tragedy Act I Don Juan has been exiled from Madrid for murdering Don Alvaro, the commander. He has now returned in secret, accompanied by his servant Leporello, to see an old flame, the actress Laura. ...
while pursuing a civil service career. Emulating the example of his contemporary Glinka, Dargomïzhsky followed his first opera Esmeralda (1839) with two works of overtly Russian character based on Pushkin, Rusalka (1856) and The Stone Guest (completed in 1870 by Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov). The exploration of speech inflection and realism in this last work had a profound influence on ...
sang in the revised version of I promessi sposi. Introduction | High Romantic | Opera Major Operas | La gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli | High Romantic Personalities | Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin | High Romantic | Opera ...
too successfully. Mavra had been composed as homage to the hallowed stylistic conventions of the old Russian school of Italian opera, and dedicated to Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804–57), Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93). Weightier Work to Come Stravinsky’s wish to produce a weightier work was then achieved with Oedipus Rex (1927). As translated into Latin, Cocteau’s ...
in St Petersburg on 9 December 1836. He was already planning his next work, Ruslan i Lyudmila (‘Ruslan and Ludmilla’, 1842), but suffered problems with the text after Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), who had written the poem on which the opera was based, was killed in a duel. Glinka had to make do with a less than satisfactory libretto, ...
Completed Masterpiece Shortly after The Marriage was abandoned, however, Mussorgsky produced his masterpiece, Boris Godunov, which was based on a play written in 1825 by Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837). This illustrated the life of Tsar Boris Godunov, whose reign cast Russia into chaos. The opera employed Mussorgsky’s radical declamatory style based on everyday speech patterns, and ...
opera achieved lasting popularity, and this was perhaps partly due to the glitzy showmanship of the impresario Diaghilev. The Golden Cockerel is based on an imitation folk tale by Pushkin that was turned into a libretto by Vladimir Nikolayevich Bel’sky. The fantastic nature of the subject was a good match for Rimsky-Korsakov’s exotic music and its visually enticing, though ...
his later operas, the exception being Mazeppa (1884). The Maid of Orleans (1881) was the story the fifteenth-century French national heroine, Joan of Arc. Although taken from a Pushkin story, The Queen of Spades (1890) betrayed the influence of Mozart, Wagner, Bizet’s Carmen and the Gallic elegance of the eighteenth-century Russian court. Likewise, Tchaikovsky’s last ...
(Pi’-otr Il’-yech Chi’-kôf-ska) 1840–93 Russian composer Few composers from the second half of the nineteenth century have achieved as great a popularity as Tchaikovsky. For many listeners, the secret lies in his special gift for broad, arching melodies and his tendency towards agonized self-expression, rooted in a series of crises in his personal life, which fall easy prey ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
CURATED
Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.