Michael Ivanovitch Glinka is called the "Father of Russian Opera". He combined the technique, forms and counterpoint of Italy and Germany with the Russian folksong and rythm. He was choice of his subjects, and thought that the management of the plots ought to be more simple, and the music in the style of natural song. There is energy and also vitality in "La Vie pour le Tsar" and "Russlau et Ludmille". In Russian folk songs we find the music suitable to the words.
The Russian folk like acting and their customs in their wedding ceremonies, etc., are an ideal basis for an opera school. Glinka used the fierce struggle of the contending nations for a background, and let the story be related and enacted by four central figures. His realism surpassed the trivial impossibilities of the Italian school. He did not combine involved themes in a pot-pourri style so that none could be distinguished, but rather created atmosphere. His instrumentalism is sonorous and uses five-four, six-four and seven-four time.
The "Pique Dame" of Tschaikovsky has a style like that of other composers beyond set forms of the older operas though not of the music drama. The arias, duets, choruses and ballets are dramatically appropriate, and the orchestra is more of a function than an accompaniment. In "Boris Godonnow" there is no principle tenor part, no principle contralto part and no principle soprano part. If it is a singer's opera at all it is a basso's, but it really is more for chorus. The writing for solo declamatory passages occassioned the use of the lyric passages in the orchestra, which was made the purveyor of color. The atmosphere is not symphonic, though the development is important and we find a remarkable use of the leitmotiv but the composer never even heard of Wagner.
Nicolai Andreyevitch Rimski-Korsakov was a serious student of Russian folk lore. His music is free and expressive—so much so that when he studied technique seriously, it was almost impaired. His operas are versatile, but his "Snow Maiden" is a trifle old-fashioned, although he fails to express pathos, delicate tenderness etc. The stage phantasmoriga, of "Christmas Eve or Vakoul the Smith", especially at the transformation scenes is accompanied with music wild and bizarre, yet consummate in its descriptive finesse. He was dissatisfied with the foreign elements of the Italian form of opera which Glinka and Tschaikovsky could assimilate to excellent purpose. He cannot seem to decide whether opera is lyrical or symphonic. His orchestra suggests the soft freshness of a May night atmosphere in the steppes of Russia, the aroma of flowers, the enchanting long drawn notes of a nightingale interspersed with the love element, and the vocal characterization of the Mayor and the Bailiff in this "A May Night" is extremely clever. Like Strauss, he uses certain themes for certain instruments and has the Russian desire to mingle meaning and sound.
Wagner laid down the theories but his imitators have failed because they did not have his genius. Rimski-Korsakov is noted for his brilliant orchestration and the ugly and cruel music leading up to his situations, but he combines dignity and simplicity with realism and not with the romantic. The protogonists of his drama are, the Russian people, and that is the reason for the extended use of the chorus. There is no central situation, as the people and one character, or sometimes two, make up the drama. It is easy to omit or transpose a scene thus showing the loosenes of the dramatic construction, which is a merit in a musical play, for the composer can express the central ideas of the drama without being bound hand and foot by dramatic situations. In the modern music drama the orchestra expresses all that cannot be expressed by the dramatic action and the singers. Rimski-Korsakov's is mainly a subjective expression of composition, while Moussorgsky's orchestra is never subjective, but always objective. Borodini's "Prince Igor" is a colorful barbaric ballet while in Dargomysky's "The Water Sprite", "The Stone Guest" there are interesting intermediary recitative sections, although the recitative of "La Pskovitaine" is dry.
Xaver Schwarwenka'a opera "Mataswinthe" resembles those of Wagner of the "Lohengrin" period. They are thoroughly modern. The muted horns in the orchestra give dramatic expressiveness in harmony and the composer uses the free arioso style. There is not the set form of the Italian school, but the modern declamatory arioso, monologues and duets, discarding recitative, and introducing massive ensembles with key complexity, but never smothering them with the orchestra.
Balakirew and Borodini employ good airs, especially in the ballet, and color their orchestra wonderfully. Cesar Cui used melodic recitative with the interdiction of the repetitions of words, and there is an absence of duets and trios and every piece of ensemble, and every one affecting a definite and complete character. "Angelo" and "The Filibuster" are too extreme, for the three acts of recitaive become monotonous. This school's form is vague except for the audacious harmonization.
Puccini adds to Wagner's reform, with the peculiar style of modern French and Italian composers which alternates light and varied orchestration and melody, with harsh, almost crude instrumentation. He demonstrates that the orchestra may be made to interpret shades and transitions of rapid and subtle emotion, and he produced an actual musical diction with some of the finest passages for the orchestra alone. His sense of melody is supreme in his combination of Italian and German methods. His impressive manner of intensifying and underscoring dramatic moments in the action is unparalleled as is also his capacity for forceful and succinct orchestral commentary. He uses his music to paint scenes and makes continuous use of distinctive and rythmic melody and there is an absence of any definite characterization by means of a leitmotiv, for his work is lighter than that of Wagner's. He maintains that opera must have local color, so therefore we find an interweaving of American airs in his "Girl of the Golden West" and American and Japanese airs in "Madame Butterfly". His score is genuinely Puccinean and an influence of Debussy is betrayed in an harmonic way.
The prelude to "Madame Butterfly" Is not an overture, though it does state some motives. His songs constantly contain one melody in the instrumental against the unrelated vocal part, and he reflects the modern moods and ideas in a score intricate in counterpoint, rich in embellishment, full of the melodic fluency of the Italian temperament and strength of the German school. The Japanese effects give beautiful lyric movements but they are not as great as Verdi's. There is intense dramatic vigor in "Manon Lescaut" which has spoken dialogue with running orchestral accompaniment and motives. "La Boheme" has neither overture nor intermezzo, and lacks sustained melody. Puccini is termed the only one with as much genius as Wagner, for he agrees that too much realism is cramping to good music, and he proves that music drama can be loosely constructed and need not conform to spoken drama standards.
Debussy, in "Pelleas and Melisande" places a statue on a stage, not a musical one, but one of dramatic action and declamation. The vocal parts are reduced to a minimum of musical expressiveness and the music, a sort of rythmless chant, is subordinate to action. He is about the only composer who makes music dependent entirely on the drama. Wagner's orchestra is a bug driving force, while Strauss' delicate shifting of the background of the polyphony does not drown the voices. Debussy does not compose with the aim of orchestral composition as do Wagner and Strauss. With Puccini, Debussy and Charpentier, the human voice counts as a real medium. In "Pelleas and Melisande" there is a tress on the naturalness of the recitative. Debussy makes music the servant of the drama and makes a symphonic use of motives which are not developed formally, but manipulated in an undercurrent of musical thought. He declares melody anti-dramatic, and in recitative with the orchestra there is freedom for individual interpretation. His "L'Enfant Prodigue" is composed along the regular lines and is his best work. He follows Cesar Franck's method of scattering a number of disconnected themes and leaving them to sort themselves.