In the course of the evening, Asantchevsky, then principal of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, delivered an address, in which he informed the composer in flattering terms that the directors of the Petersburg section of the Musical Society had decided to award him the sum of 300 roubles, being a portion of the Kondratiev Bequest for the benefit of Russian composers.
The Press notices of The Oprichnik were as contradictory as they were numerous. The opinions of Cæsar Cui and Laroche represented as usual the two opposite poles of criticism. The former declared that while
“the text might have been the work of a schoolboy, the music is equally immature and undeveloped. Poor in conception, and feeble throughout, it is such as might have been expected from a beginner, but not from a composer who has already covered so many sheets of paper. Tchaikovsky’s creative talents, which are occasionally apparent in his symphonic works, are completely lacking in The Oprichnik. The choruses are rather better than the rest, but this is only because of the folksong element which forms their thematic material.... Not only will The Oprichnik not bear comparison with other operas of the Russian school, such as Boris Godounov,[35] for instance, but it is even inferior to examples of Italian opera.”
In these words Cui apparently believed he had given the death-blow to the composer of The Oprichnik.
Laroche’s view (in The Musical Leaflet) is quite opposed to that of Cæsar Cui. He says:—
“While our modern composers of opera contend with each other in their negation of music, Tchaikovsky’s opera does not bear the stamp of this doubtful progress, but shows the work of a gifted temperament. The wealth of musical beauties in The Oprichnik is so great that this opera takes a significant place not only among Tchaikovsky’s own works, but among all the examples of Russian dramatic music. When to this rare melodic gift we add a fine harmonic style, the wonderful, free, and often daring progression of the parts, the genuinely Russian art of inventing chromatic harmonies for diatonic melodies, the frequent employment of pedal-points (which the composer uses almost too freely), the skilful manner in which he unites the various scenes into an organic whole, and finally the sonorous and brilliant orchestration, we have a score which displays many of the best features of modern operatic music, while at the same time it is free from most of the worst faults of contemporary composition.”
The most harsh and pitiless of critics, however, was the composer himself, who wrote a fortnight after the first performance as follows:—