Italian and French Influences
Like all other European countries, Russia more than a century ago succumbed to the spell of Italian music. Young men were sent to Italy to study the art of song, while famous Italian singers and composers visited Russia and made the public familiar with their tuneful art. It was under the patronage of the Empress Anna that an Italian opera was for the first time performed in the Russian capital, in 1737. She was one of several rulers who deliberately fostered a love of art in the minds of their subjects. Under the Empress Elizabeth music became “a fashionable craze,” and “every great landowner started his private band or choir.” Russia became what it still is—the place where (except in America) traveling artists could reap their richest harvests.
PLAYER OF REED PIPE
The high salaries paid tempted some of the leading Italian composers, such as Cimarosa (Cheemahrosah), Sarti, and Paisiello (Paheeseello), to make their home for years in Russia, where they composed and produced their operas. Near the end of the eighteenth century French influences also asserted themselves, but the Italians continued to predominate, so that when the Russians themselves—in the reign of Catherine the Great (1761-1796)—took courage and began to compose operas, Italian tunefulness and methods were conspicuous features of them.