ALTHOUGH I have now passed in review the leading representatives of Russian opera, my work would be incomplete if I omitted to mention some of the many talented composers—the minor poets of music—who have contributed works, often of great value and originality, to the repertories of the Imperial Theatres and private opera companies in Russia. To make a just and judicious selection is no easy task, for there is an immense increase in the number of composers as compared to five-and-twenty years ago, and the general level of technical culture has steadily risen with the multiplication of provincial opera houses, schools, and orchestras. If we cannot now discern such a galaxy of native geniuses as Russia possessed in the second half of the nineteenth century, we observe at least a very widespread and lively activity in the musical life of the present day. The tendency to work in schools or groups seems to be dying out, and the art of the younger musicians shows a diffusion of influences, and a variety of expression, which make the classification of contemporary composers a matter of considerable difficulty.
In point of seniority, Edward Franzovich Napravnik has probably the first claim on our attention. Born August 12/26, 1839, at Beisht, near KÖniggratz, in Bohemia, he came to St. Petersburg in 1861 as director of Prince Youssipov’s private orchestra. In 1863 he was appointed organist to the Imperial Theatres, and assistant to Liadov, who was then first conductor at the opera. In consequence of the latter’s serious illness in 1869, Napravnik was appointed his successor and has held this important post for over fifty years. He came into power at a time when native opera was sadly neglected, and it is to his credit that he continued his predecessor’s work of reparation with tact and zeal. The repertory of the Maryinsky Theatre, the home of Russian Opera in St. Petersburg, has been largely compiled on his advice, and although some national operas may have been unduly ignored, Napravnik has effected a steady improvement on the past. Memorable performances of Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar; of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Oniegin, The Oprichnik, and The Queen of Spades; and of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas, both of his early and late period, have distinguished his reign as a conductor. Under his command the orchestra of the Imperial Opera has come to be regarded as one of the finest and best disciplined in the world. He has also worked indefatigably to raise the social and cultural condition of the musicians.
As a composer Napravnik is not strikingly original. His music has the faults and the qualities generally found side by side in the creative works of men who follow the conductor’s vocation. His operas, as might be expected from so experienced a musician, are solidly constructed, written with due consideration for the powers of the soloists, and effective as regards the use of choral masses. On the other hand, they contain much that is purely imitative, and flashes of the highest musical inspiration come at long intervals. His first opera, The Citizens of Nijny-Novgorod,[50] was produced at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1868. The libretto by N. Kalashnikov deals with an episode from the same stirring period in Russian history as that of A Life for the Tsar, when Minin, the heroic butcher of Nijny-Novgorod, gathered together his fellow townsfolk and marched with the Boyard Pojarsky to the defence of Moscow. The national sentiment as expressed in Napravnik’s music seems cold and conventional as compared with that of Glinka or Moussorgsky. The choruses are often interesting, especially one in the church style, sung at the wedding of Kouratov and Olga—the hero and heroine of the opera—which, Cheshikin says, is based on a theme borrowed from Bortniansky, and very finely handled. On the whole, the work has suffered, because the nature of its subject brought it into competition with Glinka’s great patriotic opera. Tchaikovsky thought highly of it, and considered that it held the attention of the audience from first to last by reason of Napravnik’s masterly sense of climax; while he pronounced the orchestration to be brilliant, but never overpowering.
A more mature work is Harold, an opera in five acts, or nine scenes, first performed in St. Petersburg in November, 1886, with every possible advantage in the way of scenery and costumes. Vassilievich, Melnikov and Stravinsky took the leading male parts; while Pavlovskaya and Slavina created the two chief female characters. The success of the opera was immediate, the audience demanding the repetition of several numbers; but it must have been to some extent a succÈs d’estime, for the work, which is declamatory rather than lyrical, contains a good deal of monotonous recitative and—because it is more modern and Wagnerian in form—the fine choral effects which lent interest to Napravnik’s first opera are lacking here. In 1888 Harold was given in Moscow and Prague. Napravnik’s third operatic work, Doubrovsky, was produced at the Maryinsky Theatre in 1895, and soon travelled to Moscow, and the round of the provincial opera houses, finding its way to Prague in 1896, and to Leipzig in 1897. The libretto by Modeste Tchaikovsky, brother of the composer, based upon Poushkin’s ultra-romantic Byronic tale “Doubrovsky” is not very inspiring. Such dramatic and emotional qualities as the story contains have been ruthlessly deleted in this colourless adaptation for operatic purposes. The musical material matches the book in its facile and reminiscent quality; but this experienced conductor writes gratefully and skilfully for the singers, the orchestra being carefully subordinated to vocal effects. Interpolated in the opera, by way of a solo for Doubrovsky, is a setting of CoppÉe’s charming words “Ne jamais la voir, ni l’entendre.”
Napravnik’s fourth opera, Francesca da Rimini, is composed to a libretto by E. Ponomariev founded on Stephen Phillip’s “Francesca and Paolo.” It was first presented to the public in November 1902, the leading parts being created by that gifted pair, Nicholas and Medea Figner. Less popular than Harold or Doubrovsky, the musical value of Francesca is incontestably greater. Although the composer cannot altogether free himself from the influence of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” the subject has inspired him to write some very expressive and touching music, especially in the scene where the unhappy lovers, reading of Lancelot, seal their own doom with one supreme and guilty kiss; and in the love duet in the third act. Besides these operas, Napravnik composed a Prologue and six choral numbers for Count Alexis Tolstoy’s dramatic poem “Don Juan.”
Although not of influential importance, the name of Paul Ivanovich Blaramberg cannot be omitted from a history of Russian opera. The son of a distinguished General of French extraction, he was born in Orenburg, September 14/26, 1841. His first impulsion towards a musical career originated in his acquaintance with Balakirev’s circle; but his relations with the nationalist school must have been fleeting, as some time during the ’sixties he went abroad for a long stay, and on his return to Russia, in 1870, he settled in Moscow, where he divided his time between writing for the Moscow Viedomosty and teaching theory in the Philharmonic School. Later on he went to live on an estate belonging to him in the Crimea.
Blaramberg has written five operas in all. Skomorokhi (The Mummers), a comic opera in three acts, based on one of Ostrovsky’s comedies, was composed in 1881, and was partly produced by the pupils of the opera class of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, in the Little Theatre, in 1887. The opera is a curious blend, some portions of it being in the declamatory manner of Dargomijsky, without his expressive realism, and others in the conventional style of opera buffa, degenerating at times into mere farcical patter-singing. It contains, however, a few successful numbers in the folk-style, especially the love-duet in 5-4 measure, and shows the influence of the national school. The music of The Roussalka-Maiden is more cohesive, and written with a clearer sense of form. There are fresh and pleasant pages in this work, in which local colour is used with unaffected simplicity. Blaramberg’s third opera, Mary of Burgundy, is a more pretentious work, obviously inspired by Meyerbeer. The subject is borrowed from Victor Hugo’s drama “Marie Tudor.” It was produced at the Imperial Opera House, Moscow, in 1888. In his fourth opera, Blaramberg has not been fortunate in his choice of a libretto, which is based upon one of Ostrovsky’s “Dramatic Chronicles,” Toushino—rather a dull historical play dating from 1606, the period of Boris Godounov’s regency. Strong, direct, elementary treatment, such as it might have received at the hands of Moussorgsky, could alone have invested the subject with dramatic interest; whereas Blaramberg has clothed it in music of rather conventional and insipid character. In common with Skomorokhi, however, the work contains some admirable touches of national colour, the composer imitating the style of the folk-singing with considerable success. Blaramberg’s fifth operatic work, entitled The Wave (Volna), is described as “an Idyll in two acts,” the subject borrowed from Byron’s “Don Juan”: namely, the episode of HaidÉe’s love for Don Juan, who is cast at her feet “half-senseless from the sea.” Of this work Cheshikin says: “It consists of a series of duets and trios, with a set of Eastern dances and a ballad for bass, thrown in for variety’s sake, but having no real connection with the plot. The music is reminiscent of Gounod; the melody is of the popular order, but not altogether commonplace, and embellished by Oriental fiorituri.” An atmosphere of Eastern languor pervades the whole opera, which may be attributed to the composer’s long sojourn in the Crimea.
A name more distinguished in the annals of Russian music is that of Anton Stepanovich Arensky, born in Old Novgorod, in 1861. The son of a medical man, he received his musical education at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, where he studied under Rimsky-Korsakov. On leaving this institution, in 1882, he was appointed to a professorship at the Moscow Conservatoire. He was also a member of the Council of the Synodal School of Church Music at Moscow, and conducted the concerts of the Russian choral society for a period of over seven years. In 1894, Balakirev recommended Arensky for the Directorship of the Imperial Chapel at St. Petersburg, a post which he held until 1901. Arensky’s first opera A Dream on the Volga was produced at the Imperial Opera House, Moscow, in December 1892. The work was not given in St. Petersburg until 1903, when it was performed at the People’s Palace. The subject is identical with Ostrovsky’s comedy “The Voyevode,” which the dramatist himself arranged for Tchaikovsky’s use in 1867. Tchaikovsky, as we have seen, destroyed the greater part of the opera which he wrote to this libretto, but the manuscript of the book remained, and in 1882, at Arensky’s request, he handed it over to him “with his benediction.” Arensky approached the subject in a different spirit to Tchaikovsky, giving to his music greater dramatic force and veracity, and making more of the Russian element contained in the play. The scene entitled “The Voyevode’s Dream,” in the fourth act, in which the startled, nightmare cries of the guilty old Voyevode are heard in strange contrast to the lullaby sung by the old woman as she rocks the child in the cradle, is highly effective. In his use of the folk-tunes Arensky follows Melgounov’s system of the “natural minor,” and his handling of national themes is always appropriate and interesting. His harmonisation and elaboration by means of variations of the familiar tune “Down by Mother Volga” is an excellent example of his skill in this respect. Arensky’s melody has not the sweeping lines and sustained power of Tchaikovsky’s, but his tendency is lyrical and romantic rather than realistic and declamatory, and his use of arioso is marked by breadth and clearness of outline.
Arensky’s second opera Raphael was composed for the first Congress of Russian Artists held in Moscow; the occasion probably gives us the clue to his choice of subject. The first production of the opera took place in April 1894, and in the autumn of the following year it was given at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. The part of Raphael, which is written for a female voice, was sung by Slavina, La Fornarina being represented by Mravina. The work consists of a series of small delicately wrought musical cameos. By its tenderness and sweet romantic fancy the music often recalls Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Oniegin; but it is more closely united with the text, and greater attention is paid to the natural accentuation of the words. Between Raphael and his last opera, Nal and Damyanti, Arensky wrote music to Poushkin’s poem “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai,” for the commemoration of the centenary of the poet’s birth. The analysis of this work does not come within the scope of my subject, but I mention it because it was a great advance on any of his previous vocal works and led up to the increased maturity shown in Nal and Damyanti.
The libretto of this opera was prepared by Modeste Tchaikovsky from Joukovsky’s free translation of RÜckert’s poem. Nal and Damyanti was first performed at the Moscow Opera House in January 1904. Some external influences are still apparent in the work, but they now proceed from Wagner rather than from Tchaikovsky. The orchestral introduction, an excellent piece of work, is occasionally heard in the concert room; it depicts the strife between the spirits of light and darkness which forms the basis of this Oriental poem. This opera is the most suitable for stage performance of any of Arensky’s works; the libretto is well written, the plot holds our attention and the scenic effects follow in swift succession. Here Arensky has thrown off the tendency to miniature painting which is more or less perceptible in his earlier dramatic works, and has produced an opera altogether on broader and stronger lines. It is unfortunate, however, that he still shows a lack of complete musical independence; as Cheshikin remarks: “from Tchaikovsky to Wagner is rather an abrupt modulation!”
Perhaps the nearest approach to a recognised “school” now extant in Russia is to be found in Moscow, where the influence of Tchaikovsky lingers among a few of his direct disciples, such as Rachmaninov, Grechyaninov, and Ippolitov-Ivanov.
Sergius Vassilievich Rachmaninov (b. 1873), so well known to us in England as a pianist and composer of instrumental music, was a pupil of the Moscow Conservatoire, where he studied under Taneiev and Arensky. Dramatic music does not seem to exercise much attraction for this composer. His one-act opera Aleko, the subject borrowed from Poushkin’s poem “The Gipsies,” was originally written as a diploma work for his final examination at the Conservatoire in 1872, and had the honour of being produced at the Imperial Opera House, Moscow, in the following season. Aleko was given in St. Petersburg, at the Taurida Palace, during the celebration of the Poushkin centenary in 1899, when Shaliapin took part in the performance. It is a blend of the declamatory and lyrical styles, and the music, though not strikingly original, runs a pleasing, sympathetic, and somewhat uneventful course.
Alexander Tikhonovich Grechyaninov, born October 13/25 1864, in Moscow, entered the Conservatoire of his native city where he made the pianoforte his chief study under the guidance of Vassily Safonov. In 1893 he joined the St. Petersburg Conservatoire in order to learn composition from Rimsky-Korsakov. The following year a quartet by him won the prize at the competition organised by the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society. He wrote incidental music to Ostrovsky’s “Snow Maiden” and to Count Alexis Tolstoy’s historical dramas “Tsar Feodor” and “Ivan the Terrible” before attempting to compose the opera Dobrynia Nikitich on the subject of one of the ancient Byliny or national legends. The introduction and third act of this work was first given in public in February 1903, at one of Count Sheremetiev’s popular concerts, and in the following spring it was performed in its entirety at the Imperial Opera House, with Shaliapin in the title rÔle. It is a picturesque, wholly lyrical work. Kashkin describes the music as agreeable and flowing, even in those scenes where the nature of the subject demands a more robust and vigorous musical treatment. Dobrynia Nikitich obviously owes much to Glinka’s Russlan and Liudmilla and Borodin’s Prince Igor.
SHALIAPIN IN BOÏTO’S “MEFISTOFELE”
SHALIAPIN IN BOÏTO’S “MEFISTOFELE”
Another musician who is clearly influenced by Tchaikovsky is Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov (b. 1859), a distinguished pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire. He was afterwards appointed Director of the School of Music, and of the Opera, at Tiflis in the Caucasus, where his first opera Ruth was produced in 1887. In 1893 he accepted a professorship at the Moscow Conservatoire, and became conductor of the Private Opera Company. Ippolitov-Ivanov is a great connoisseur of the music of the Caucasian races, and also of the old Hebrew melodies. He makes good use of the latter in Ruth, a graceful, idyllic opera, the libretto of which does not keep very strictly to Biblical traditions. In 1900 Ippolitov-Ivanov’s second opera Assya—the libretto borrowed from Tourgeniev’s tale which bears the same title—was produced in Moscow by the Private Opera Company. The tender melancholy sentiment of the music reflects the influence of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Oniegin; but by way of contrast there are some lively scenes from German student life.
With the foregoing composers we may link the name of Vassily Sergeivich Kalinnikov (1866-1900), who is known in this country by his Symphonies in G minor and A major. He composed incidental music to Count Alexis Tolstoy’s play “Tsar Boris” (Little Theatre, Moscow, 1897) and the Prologue to an opera entitled The Year 1812, which was never finished in consequence of the musician’s failing health and untimely death. Kalinnikov hardly had time to outgrow his early phase of Tchaikovsky worship.
Another Muscovite composer of widely different temperament to Ippolitov-Ivanov, or Kalinnikov, is Sergius Ivanovich Taneiev,[51] born November 13/25, 1856, in the Government of Vladimir. He studied under Nicholas Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatoire and made his dÉbut as a pianist at one of the concerts of the I.R.M.S. in 1875. He remained Tchaikovsky’s friend long after he had ceased to be his pupil, and among the many letters they exchanged in after years there is one published in Tchaikovsky’s “Life and Letters,” dated January 14/26, 1891, which appears to be a reply to Taneiev’s question: “How should Opera be written?” At this time Taneiev was engaged upon his Orestes, the only work of the kind he has ever composed. The libretto, based upon the Aeschylean tragedy, is the work of Benkstern and has considerable literary merit. Orestes, although described by Taneiev as a Trilogy, is, in fact, an opera in three acts entitled respectively: (1) Agamemnon, (2) Choephoroe, (3) Eumenides. Neither in his choice of subject, nor in his treatment of it, has Taneiev followed the advice given him by Tchaikovsky in the letter mentioned above. Perhaps it was not in his nature to write opera “just as it came to him,” or to show much emotional expansiveness. Neither does he attempt to write music which is archaic in style; on the contrary, Orestes is in many respects a purely Wagnerian opera. Leitmotifs are used freely, though less systematically than in the later Wagnerian music-dramas. The opera, though somewhat cold and laboured, is not wanting in dignity, and is obviously the work of a highly educated musician. The representative themes, if they are rather short-winded, are often very expressive; this is the case with the leitmotif of the ordeal of Orestes, which stands out prominently in the first part of the work, and also forms the motive of the short introduction to the Trilogy.
Towards the close of last century the new tendencies which are labelled respectively “impressionism,” “decadence,” and “symbolism,” according to the point of view from which they are being discussed, began to make themselves felt in Russian art, resulting in a partial reaction from the vigorous realism of the ’sixties and ’seventies, and also from the academic romanticism which was the prevalent note of the cosmopolitan Russian school. What Debussy had derived from his study of Moussorgsky and other Russian composers, the Slavs now began to take back with interest from the members of the younger French school. The flattering tribute of imitation hitherto offered to Glinka, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner was now to be transferred to Gabriel FaurÉ, Debussy, and Ravel. In two composers this new current of thought is clearly observed.
Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov (b. 1866) received most of his musical education in Berlin and Vienna. On his return to Russia he settled for a time at Odessa, where his first opera In the Storm was produced in 1894. A few years later he organised a new branch of the I.R.M.S. at Kishiniev, but in 1901 he took up his abode permanently in Moscow. Rebikov has expressed his own musical creed in the following words: “Music is the language of the emotions. Our emotions have neither starting point, definite form, nor ending: when we transmit them through music it should be in conformity with this point of view.”[52] Acting upon this theory, Rebikov’s music, though it contains a good deal that is original, leaves an impression of vagueness and formlessness on the average mind; not, of course, as compared with the very latest examples of modernism, but in comparison with what immediately precedes it in Russian music. In his early opera In the Storm, based on Korolenko’s legend “The Forest is Murmuring” (Liess Shoumit), the influence of Tchaikovsky is still apparent. His second work, The Christmas Tree, was produced at the Aquarium Theatre, Moscow, in 1903. Cheshikin says that the libretto is a combination of one of Dostoievsky’s tales with Hans Andersen’s “The Little Match-Girl” and Hauptmann’s “Hannele.” The contrast between the sad reality of life and the bright visions of Christmastide lend themselves to scenic effects. The music is interesting by reason of its extreme modern tendencies. The opera contains several orchestral numbers which seem to have escaped the attention of enterprising conductors—a Valse, a March of Gnomes, a Dance of Mummers, and a Dance of Chinese Dolls.
The second composer to whom I referred as showing signs of French impressionist influence is Serge Vassilenko (b. 1872, Moscow). He first came before the public in 1902 with a Cantata, The Legend of the City of Kitezh. Like Rachmaninov’s Aleko, this was also a diploma work. The following year it was given in operatic form by the Private Opera Company in Moscow. Some account of the beautiful mystical legend of the city that was miraculously saved from the Tatars by the fervent prayers of its inhabitants has already been given in the chapter dealing with Rimsky-Korsakov. It remains to be said that Vassilenko’s treatment of the subject is in many ways strong and original. He is remarkably successful in reviving the remote, fantastic, rather austere atmosphere of Old Russia, and uses Slavonic and Tatar melodies in effective contrast. The work, which does not appear to have become a repertory opera, is worth the study of those who are interested in folk-music.
There is little satisfaction in presenting my readers with a mere list of names, but space does not permit me to do much more in the case of the following composers:
G. A. Kazachenko (b. 1858), of Malo-Russian origin, has written two operas: Prince Serebryany (1892) and Pan Sotnik (1902),[53] which have met with some success. A. N. Korestchenko, the composer of Belshazzar’s Feast (1892), The Angel of Death (Lermontov), and The Ice Palace (1900). N. R. Kochetov, whose Terrible Revenge (Gogol) was produced in St. Petersburg in 1897; and Lissenko, sometimes called “the Malo-Russian Glinka,” the composer of a whole series of operas that enjoy some popularity in the southern provinces of Russia.
This list is by no means exhaustive, for the proportion of Russian composers who have produced operatic works is a striking fact in the artistic history of the country—a phenomenon which can only be attributed to the encouragement held out to musicians by the great and increasing number of theatres scattered over the vast surface of the Empire.
As we have seen, all the leading representatives of Russian music, whether they belonged to the nationalist movement or not, occupied themselves with opera. There are, however, two distinguished exceptions. Anatol Constantinovich Liadov (b. 1855) and Alexander Constantinovich Glazounov (b. 1865) were both members, at any rate for a certain period of their lives, of the circles of Balakirev and Belaiev, but neither of them have shared the common attraction to dramatic music. Glazounov, it is true, has written some remarkably successful ballets—“Raymonda” and “The Seasons”—but shows no inclination to deal with the problems of operatic style.
The “opera-ballet,” which is not—what at the present moment it is frequently being called—a new form of operatic art, but merely the revival of an old one,[54] is engaging the attention of the followers of Rimsky-Korsakov. At the same time it should be observed that the application of this term to A Night in May and The Golden Cock is not sanctioned by what the composer himself has inscribed upon the title pages.
At the present time the musical world is eagerly expecting the production of Igor Stravinsky’s first opera The Nightingale. This composer, by his ballets The Bird of Fire, Petrouchka, and The Sacrifice to Spring, has worked us up through a steady crescendo of interest to a climax of curiosity as to what he will produce next. So far, we know him only as the composer of highly original and often brilliant instrumental works. It is difficult to prophesy what his treatment of the vocal element in music may prove to be. The work is in three acts, based upon Hans Andersen’s story of the Emperor of China and the Nightingale. The opera was begun several years ago, and we are therefore prepared to find in it some inequality of style; but the greater part of it, so we are told, bears the stamp of Stravinsky’s “advanced” manner, and the fundamental independence and novelty of the score of The Sacrifice to Spring leads us to expect in The Nightingale a work of no ordinary power.
Russia, from the earliest institution of her opera houses, has always been well served as regards foreign artists. All the great European stars have been attracted there by the princely terms offered for their services. Russian opera, however, had to be contented for a long period with second-rate singers. Gradually the natural talent of the race was cultivated, and native singers appeared upon the scene who were equal in every respect to those imported from abroad. The country has always been rich in bass and baritone voices. One of the most remarkable singers of the last century, O. A. Petrov (1807-1878), was a bass-baritone of a beautiful quality, with a compass extending from B to G sharp. He made his dÉbut at the Imperial Opera, St. Petersburg, in 1830, as Zoroaster in “The Magic Flute.” Stassov often spoke to me of this great artist, the operatic favourite of his young days. There were few operatic stars, at least at that period, who did not—so Stassov declared—make themselves ridiculous at times. Petrov was the exception. He was a great actor; his facial play was varied and expressive, without the least exaggeration; he was picturesque, forcible, graceful, and, above all, absolutely free from conventional pose. His interpretation of the parts of Ivan Sousanin in A Life for the Tsar, the Miller in The Roussalka, of Leporello in The Stone Guest, and, even in his last days, of Varlaam in Boris Godounov, were inimitable for their depth of feeling, historic truth, intellectual grasp, and sincerity. Artistically speaking, Petrov begat Shaliapin.
To Petrov succeeded Melnikov, a self-taught singer, who was particularly fine in the parts of Russlan, the Miller, and Boris Godounov. Among true basses Karyakin possessed a phenomenal voice, but not much culture. A critic once aptly compared his notes for power, depth, and roundness to a row of mighty oaken barrels.
Cui, in his “Recollections of the Opera,” speaks of the following artists, stars of the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, between 1872 and 1885: Menshikova, who possessed a powerful soprano voice of rare beauty; Raab, who was musically gifted; Levitskaya, distinguished for her sympathetic qualities, and Pavlovskaya, a remarkably intelligent and “clever” artist. But his brightest memories of this period centre around Platonova. Her voice was not of exceptional beauty, but she was so naturally gifted, and her impersonation so expressive, that she never failed to make a profound impression. “How she loved Russian art,” says Cui, “and with what devotion she was prepared to serve it in comparison with most of the favourite singers of the day! None of us native composers, old or young, could have dispensed with her. The entire Russian repertory rested on her, and she bore the burden courageously and triumphantly.” Her best parts were Antonida in A Life for the Tsar, Natasha in The Roussalka, Marina in Boris Godounov, and Donna Anna in The Stone Guest.
Among contraltos, after Leonova’s day, Lavrovskaya and Kroutikova were the most popular. The tenors Nikolsky, Orlov, and Vassiliev all had fine voices. Orlov was good as Michael Toucha in The Maid of Pskov; while Vassiliev’s best part was the King of Berendei in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snow Maiden. Another tenor, whose reputation however was chiefly made abroad, was Andreiev.
Later on, during the ’eighties and ’nineties, Kamenskaya, a fine soprano, was inimitable in the part of Rogneda (Serov), and in Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans. Dolina, a rich and resonant mezzo-soprano, excelled as Ratmir in Glinka’s Russlan. Slavina, whose greatest success was in Bizet’s “Carmen,” and Mravina, a high coloratura soprano, were both favourites at this time. To this period also belong the triumphs of the Figners—husband and wife. Medea Figner was perhaps at her best as Carmen, and her husband was an admirable Don JosÉ, but it is as the creator of Lensky in Eugene Oniegin, and of Herman in The Queen of Spades that he will live in the affections of the Russian public.
SHALIAPIN AS DON QUIXOTE
SHALIAPIN AS DON QUIXOTE
In Feodor Ivanovich Shaliapin, Russia probably possesses the greatest living operatic artist. Born February 1/13, 1873, in the picturesque old city of Kazan, he is of peasant descent. He had practically no education in childhood, and as regards both his intellectual and musical culture he is, to all intents and purposes, an autodidact. For a time he is said to have worked with a shoe-maker in the same street where Maxim Gorky was toiling in the baker’s underground shop, so graphically described in his tale “Twenty-six and One.” For a short period Shaliapin sang in the Archbishop’s choir, but at seventeen he joined a local operetta company which was almost on the verge of bankruptcy. When no pay was forthcoming, he earned a precarious livelihood by frequenting the railway station and doing the work of an outporter. He was often perilously near starvation. Later on, he went with a travelling company of Malo-Russians to the region of the Caspian and the Caucasus. On this tour he sang—and danced, when occasion demanded. In 1892 he found himself in Tiflis, where his voice and talents attracted the attention of a well-known singer Oussatov, who gave him some lessons and got him engaged at the opera in that town. He made his dÉbut at Tiflis in A Life for the Tsar. In 1894 he sang in St. Petersburg, at the Summer Theatre in the Aquarium, and also at the Panaevsky Theatre. The following year he was engaged at the Maryinsky Theatre, but the authorities seem to have been blind to the fact that in Shaliapin they had acquired a second Petrov. His appearances there were not very frequent. It was not until 1896, when the lawyer-millionaire Mamantov paid the fine which released him from the service of the Imperial Opera House, and invited him to join the Private Opera Company at Moscow, that Shaliapin got his great chance in life. He became at once the idol of the Muscovites, and admirers journeyed from St. Petersburg and the provinces to hear him. When I visited St. Petersburg in 1897, I found Vladimir Stassov full of enthusiasm for the genius of Shaliapin. Unluckily for me, the season of the Private Opera Company had just come to an end, but I learnt at secondhand to know and appreciate Shaliapin in all his great impersonations. By 1899 the Imperial Opera of Moscow had engaged him at a salary of 60,000 roubles a year. His fame soon spread abroad and he was in request at Monte Carlo, Buenos Aires, and Milan; in the last named city he married, and installed himself in a house there for a time. Visits to New York and Paris followed early in this century, and finally, through the enterprise of Sir Joseph Beecham, London had an opportunity of hearing this great artist during the season of 1913. Speaking to me of his London experiences, Shaliapin was evidently deeply moved by, and not a little astonished at, the enthusiastic welcome accorded to him and to his compatriots. He had, of course, been told that we were a cold and phlegmatic race, but he found in our midst such heart-felt warmth and sincerity as he had never before experienced outside Russia.
Shaliapin’s romantic history has proved a congenial soil for the growth of all manner of sensational tales and legends around his life and personality. They make amusing material for newspaper and magazine articles; but as I am here concerned with history rather than with fiction, I will forbear to repeat more than one anecdote connected with his career. The incident was related to me by a famous Russian musician. I will not, however, vouch for its veracity, but only for its highly picturesque and dramatic qualities. A few years ago the chorus of the Imperial Opera House desired to present a petition to the Emperor. It was arranged that after one of the earlier scenes in Boris Godounov the curtain should be rung up again, and the chorus should be discovered kneeling in an attitude of supplication, their faces turned towards the Imperial box, while their chosen representative should offer the petition to the “exalted personage” who was attending the opera that night. When the curtain went up for the second time it disclosed an unrehearsed effect. Shaliapin, who was not aware of the presentation of the petition by the chorus, had not left the stage in time. There, among the crowd of humble petitioners, stood Tsar Boris; dignified, colossal, the very personification of kingly authority, in his superb robes of cloth of gold, with the crown of Monomakh upon his head. For one thrilling, sensational moment Tsar Boris stood face to face with Tsar Nicholas II.; then some swift impulse, born of custom, of good taste, or of the innate spirit of loyalty that lurks in every Russian heart, brought the dramatic situation to an end. Tsar Boris dropped on one knee, mingling with the supplicating crowd, and etiquette triumphed, to the inward mortification of a contingent of hot-headed young revolutionists who had hoped to see him defy convention to the last.
In Russia, where some kind of political leitmotif is bound to accompany a great personality through life, however much he may wish to disassociate himself from it, attempts have been made to identify Shaliapin with the extreme radical party. It is sufficient, and much nearer the truth, to say that he is a patriot, with all that the word implies of love for one’s country as it is, and hope for what its destinies may yet be. Shaliapin could not be otherwise than patriotic, seeing that he is Russian through and through. When we are in his society the two qualities which immediately rivet our attention are his Herculean virility and his Russian-ness. He is Russian in his sincerity and candour, in his broad human sympathies, and in a certain child-like simplicity which is particularly engaging in this much-worshipped popular favourite. He is Russian, too, in his extremes of mood, which are reflected so clearly in his facial expression. Silent and in repose, he has the look of almost tragic sadness and patient endurance common in the peasant types of Great Russia. But suddenly his whole face is lit up with a smile which is full of drollery, and his humour is frank and infectious.
As an actor his greatest quality appears to me to be his extraordinary gift of identification with the character he is representing. Shaliapin does not merely throw himself into the part, to use a phrase commonly applied to the histrionic art. He seems to disappear, to empty himself of all personality, that Boris Godounov or Ivan the Terrible may be re-incarnated for us. It might pass for some occult process; but it is only consummate art. While working out his own conception of a part, unmoved by convention or opinion, Shaliapin neglects no accessory study that can heighten the realism of his interpretation. It is impossible to see him as Ivan the Terrible, or Boris, without realising that he is steeped in the history of those periods, which live again at his will.[55] In the same way he has studied the masterpieces of Russian art to good purpose, as all must agree who have compared the scene of Ivan’s frenzied grief over the corpse of Olga, in the last scene of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, with Repin’s terrible picture of the Tsar, clasping in his arms the body of the son whom he has just killed in a fit of insane anger. The agonising remorse and piteous senile grief have been transferred from Repin’s canvas to Shaliapin’s living picture, without the revolting suggestion of the shambles which mars the painter’s work. Sometimes, too, Shaliapin will take a hint from the living model. His dignified make-up as the Old Believer Dositheus, in Moussorgsky’s Khovanstchina, owes not a little to the personality of Vladimir Stassov.
Here is an appreciation of Shaliapin which will be of special interest to the vocalist:
“One of the most striking features of his technique is the remarkable fidelity of word utterance which removes all sense of artificiality, so frequently associated with operatic singing. His diction floats on a beautiful cantilena, particularly in his mezzo-voce singing, which—though one would hardly expect it from a singer endowed with such a noble bass voice—is one of the most telling features of his performance. There is never any striving after vocal effects, and his voice is always subservient to the words. This style of singing is surely that which Wagner so continually demanded from his interpreters; but it is the antithesis of that staccato ‘Bayreuth bark’ which a few years ago so woefully misrepresented the master’s ideal of fine lyric diction. The atmosphere and tone-colour which Shaliapin imparts to his singing are of such remarkable quality that one feels his interpretation of Schubert’s ‘DoppelgÄnger’ must of necessity be a thing of genius, unapproachable by other contemporary singers. The range of his voice is extensive, for though of considerable weight in the lower parts, his upper register is remarkable in its conformity to his demands. The sustained upper E natural with which he finishes that great song ‘When the king went forth to war,’ is uttered with a delicate pianissimo that would do credit to any lyric tenor or soprano. Yet his technique is of that high order that never obtrudes itself upon the hearer. It is always his servant, never his master. His readings are also his own, and it is his absence of all conventionality that makes his singing of the ‘Calunnia’ aria from ‘Il Barbiere’ a thing of delight, so full of humour is its interpretation, and so satisfying to the demands of the most exacting ‘bel cantist.’ The reason is not far to seek, for his method is based upon a thoroughly sound breath control, which produces such splendid cantabile results. Every student should listen to this great singer and profit by his art.”[56]
A few concluding words as to the present conditions of opera in Russia. They have greatly changed during the last thirty years. In St. Petersburg the Maryinsky Theatre, erected in 1860, renovated in 1894, and more or less reorganised in 1900, was for a long time the only theatre available for Russian opera in the capital. In 1900 the People’s Palace, with a theatre that accommodates 1,200 spectators, was opened with a performance of A Life for the Tsar; here the masterpieces of national opera are now given from time to time at popular prices. Opera is also given in the great hall of the Conservatoire, formerly the “Great Theatre”; and occasionally in the “Little Theatre.” In Moscow the “Great Theatre” or Opera House is the official home of music-drama. It now has as rivals, the Zimin Opera (under the management of S. I. Zimin) and the National Opera. In 1897 the Moscow Private Opera Company was started with the object of producing novelties by Russian composers, and encouraging native opera in general. It was located at first in the Solodovnikov Theatre, under the management of Vinter, and the conductorship of Zeleny. It soon blossomed into a fine organisation when S. Mamantov, a wealthy patron of art, came to its support. Through its palmy days (1897-1900), Ippolitov-Ivanov was the conductor, and a whole series of national operas by Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, and others were superbly staged. Shaliapin first made his mark at this time.
Numerous private opera companies sprang up in Russia about the close of last century. Cheshikin gives a list of over sixty, mounting opera in the provinces between 1896 and 1903; indeed the whole country from Archangel to Astrakhan and from Vilna to Vladivostok seems to have been covered by these enterprising managers; and the number has doubtless increased in the last ten years. When, in addition to these, we reckon the many centres which boast a state-supported opera house, it would appear that Russians have not much to complain of as regards this form of entertainment. But the surface of the country is vast, and there are still districts where cultivated music, good or bad, is an unknown enjoyment. Nor must we imagine that the standard of these provincial private companies is always an exalted one, or that national operas, if presented at all, are mounted as we are accustomed to see them in Western Europe. We may hope that the case cited by a critic, of a Moscow manager who produced Donizetti’s “La Fille du RÉgiment” under the title of “A Daughter of the Regiment of La Grande ArmÉe,” in a Russian version said to have been the work of an English nursery governess, with a picture of the Battle of Marengo as a set background, was altogether exceptional. But indifferent performances do occur, even in a country so highly educated in operatic matters as Russia may fairly claim to be.
As I write the last pages of this book, the comprehensiveness of its title fills me with dismay. “An Introduction to the Study of Russian Opera” would have been more modest and appropriate, since no complete and well-balanced survey of the subject could possibly be contained in a volume of this size. Much that is interesting has been passed over without comment; and many questions demanded much fuller treatment. One fact, however, I have endeavoured to set forth in these pages in the clearest and most emphatic terms: Russian opera is beyond all question a genuine growth of the Russian soil; it includes the aroma and flavour of its native land “as the wine must taste of its own grapes.” Its roots lie deep in the folk-music, where they have spread and flourished naturally and without effort. So profoundly embedded and so full of vitality are its fibres, that nothing has been able to check their growth and expansion. Discouraged by the Church, its germs still lived on in the music of the people; neglected by the professional element, it found shelter in the hearts of amateurs; refused by the Imperial Opera Houses, it flourished in the drawing-rooms of a handful of enthusiasts. It has always existed in some embryonic form as an inherent part of the national life; and when at last it received official recognition, it quickly absorbed all that was given to it in the way of support and attention, but persisted in throwing out its vigorous branches in whatever direction it pleased. Persecution could not kill it, nor patronage spoil it; because it is one with the soul of the people. May it long retain its lofty idealism and sane vigour!
