The Russian Opera

by Rosa Newmarch

The first æsthetic impressions of an artist’s childhood are rarely quite obliterated in his subsequent career. We may often trace some peculiar quality of a man’s genius back to the very traditions he imbibed in the nursery. Tchaikovsky’s family boasted no skilled performers, and, being fond of music, had an orchestrion sent from the capital to their official residence among the Ural Mountains. Peter Ilich, then about six years old, was never tired of hearing its operatic selections; and in after life declared that he owed to this mechanical contrivance his passion for Mozart and his unchanging affection for the music of the Italian school.

It is certain that while Glinka was influenced by Beethoven, Serov by Wagner and Meyerbeer, Cui by Chopin and Schumann, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov by Liszt and Berlioz, Tchaikovsky never ceased to blend with the characteristic melody of his country an echo of the sensuous beauty of the South. This reflection of what was gracious and ideally beautiful in Italian music is undoubtedly one of the secrets of Tchaikovsky’s great popularity with the public. It is a concession to human weakness of which we gladly avail ourselves; although, as moderns, we have graduated in a less sensuous school, we are still willing to worship the old gods of melody under a new name.

Tchaikovsky began quite early in life to frequent the Italian Opera in St. Petersburg; consequently his musical tastes developed far earlier on the dramatic than on the symphonic side. He knew and loved the operatic masterpieces of the Italian and French schools long before he knew the Symphonies of Beethoven or any of Schumann’s works. His first opera, The Voyevode, was composed about a year after he left the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, in 1866. He had just been appointed professor of harmony at Moscow, but was still completely unknown as a composer. At this time he was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of the great dramatist Ostrovsky, who generously offered to supply his first libretto. In spite of the prestige of the author’s name, it was not altogether satisfactory, for Ostrovsky had originally written The Voyevode as a comedy in five acts, and in adapting it to suit the requirements of conventional opera many of its best features had to be sacrificed.

The music was pleasing and quite Italian in style. The work coincides with Tchaikovsky’s orchestral fantasia “Fatum” or “Destiny,” and also with the most romantic love-episode of his life—his fascination for Madame Désiré-Artôt, then the star of Italian Opera in Moscow. Thus all things seemed to combine at this juncture in his career to draw him to dramatic art, and especially towards Italianised opera.

The Voyevode, given at the Grand Opera, Moscow, in January, 1869, provoked the most opposite critical opinions. It does not seem to have satisfied Tchaikovsky himself for, having made use of some of the music in a later opera (The Oprichnik), he destroyed the greater part of the score.

The composer’s second operatic attempt was made with Undine. This work, submitted to the Director of the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg in 1869, was rejected, and the score mislaid by some careless official. When, after some years, it was discovered and returned to the composer, he put it in the fire without remorse. Neither of these immature efforts are worth serious consideration as affecting the development of Russian opera.

The Oprichnik was begun in January 1870, and completed in April 1872. Tchaikovsky attacked this work in a complete change of spirit. This time his choice fell upon a purely national and historical subject. Lajechnikov’s tragedy “The Oprichnik” is based upon an episode of the period of Ivan the Terrible, and possesses qualities which might well appeal to a composer of romantic proclivities. A picturesque setting; dramatic love and political intrigue; a series of effective—even sensational—situations, and finally several realistic pictures from national life; all these things might have been turned to excellent account in the hands of a skilled librettist. Unluckily the book was not well constructed, while, in order to comply with the demands of the Censor, the central figure of the tragedy—the tyrant himself—had to be reduced to a mere nonentity. The most serious error, however, was committed by Tchaikovsky himself, when he grafted upon The Oprichnik, with its crying need for national colour and special treatment, a portion of the pretty Italianised music of The Voyevode. The interpolation of half an act from a comedy subject into the libretto of an historical tragedy confused the action without doing much to relieve the lurid and sombre atmosphere of the piece.

The “Oprichniki,” as we have already seen in Rubinstein’s opera The Bold Merchant Kalashnikov, were the “Bloods” and dandies of the court of Ivan the Terrible—young noblemen of wild and dissolute habits who bound themselves together by sacrilegious vows to protect the tyrant and carry out his evil desires. Their unbridled insolence, the tales of their Black Masses and secret crimes, and their utter disrespect for age or sex, made them the terror of the populace. Sometimes they masqueraded in the dress of monks, but they were in reality robbers and murderers, hated and feared by the people whom they oppressed.

Here is the story of The Oprichnik briefly stated: Andrew Morozov, the descendant of a noble but impoverished house, and the only son of the widowed Boyarinya Morozova, is in love with the beautiful Natalia, daughter of Prince Jemchoujny. His poverty disqualifies him as a suitor. While desperately in need of money, Andrew falls in with Basmanov, a young Oprichnik, who persuades him to join the community, telling him that an Oprichnik can always fill his own pockets. Andrew consents, and takes the customary oath of celibacy. Afterwards, circumstances cause him to break his vow and marry Natalia against her father’s wish. Prince Viazminsky, the leader of the Oprichniki, cherishes an old grudge against the family of Morozov, and works for Andrew’s downfall. On his wedding-day he breaks in upon the feast with a message from the Tsar. Ivan the Terrible has heard of the bride’s beauty, and desires her attendance at the royal apartments. Andrew, with gloomy forebodings in his heart, prepares to escort his bride, when Viazminsky, with a meaning smile, explains that the invitation is for the bride alone. Andrew refuses to let his wife go into the tyrant’s presence unprotected. Viazminsky proclaims him a rebel and a traitor to his vows. Natalia is carried away by force, and the Oprichniki lead Andrew into the market-place to suffer the death-penalty at their hands. Meanwhile Boyarinya Morozova, who had cast off her son when he became an Oprichnik, has softened towards him, and comes to see him on his wedding-day. She enters the deserted hall where Viazminsky, alone, is gloating over the success of his intrigue. She inquires unsuspectingly for Andrew, and he leads her to the window. Horror-stricken, she witnesses the execution of her own son by his brother Oprichniki, and falls dead at the feet of her implacable enemy.

During its first season, this work was given fourteen times; so that its success—for a national opera—may be reckoned decidedly above the average. Those who represented the advanced school of musical opinion in Russia condemned its forms as obsolete. Cui, in particular, called it the work of a schoolboy who knew nothing of the requirements of the lyric drama, and pronounced it unworthy to rank with such masterpieces of the national school as Moussorgsky’s Boris Godounov or Rimsky-Korsakov’s Maid of Pskov.