But the most pitiless of critics was Tchaikovsky himself, who declared that he always took to his heels during the rehearsals of the third and fourth acts to avoid hearing a bar of the music. “Is it not strange,” he writes, “that in process of composition it seemed charming? But what disenchantment followed the first rehearsals! It has neither action, style, nor inspiration!”
Both judgments are too severe. The Oprichnik is not exactly popular, but it has never dropped out of the repertory of Russian opera. Many years ago I heard it in St. Petersburg, and noted my impressions. The characters, with the exception of the Boyarinya Morozova, are not strongly delineated; the subject is lurid, “horror on horror’s head accumulates”; the Russian and Italian elements are incongruously blended; yet there are saving qualities in the work. Certain moments are charged with the most poignant dramatic feeling. In this opera, even as in the weakest of Tchaikovsky’s music, there is something that appeals to our common humanity. The composer himself must have modified his early judgment, since he was actually engaged in remodelling The Oprichnik at the time of his death.
In 1872 the Grand Duchess Helena Pavlovna commissioned Serov to compose an opera on the subject of Gogol’s Malo-Russian tale “Christmas Eve Revels.” A celebrated poet, Polonsky, had already prepared the libretto, when the death of the Grand Duchess, followed by that of Serov himself, put an end to the scheme. Out of respect to the memory of this generous patron, the Imperial Musical Society resolved to carry out her wishes. A competition was organised for the best setting of Polonsky’s text under the title of Vakoula the Smith, and Tchaikovsky’s score carried off both first and second prizes. In after years he made considerable alterations in this work and renamed it Cherevichek (“The Little Shoes”). It is also known in foreign editions as Le Caprice d’Oxane. The libretto follows the general lines of the Christmas Eve Revels, described in the chapter dealing with Rimsky-Korsakov.
Early in the ’seventies Tchaikovsky came under the ascendency of Balakirev, Stassov, and other representatives of the ultra-national and modern school. Cherevichek, like the Second Symphony—which is also Malo-Russian in colouring—and the symphonic poems “Romeo and Juliet” (1870), “The Tempest” (1874), and “Francesca di Rimini” (1876), may be regarded as the outcome of this phase of influence. The originality and captivating local colour, as well as the really poetical lyrics with which the book of this opera is interspersed, no doubt commended it to Tchaikovsky’s fancy. Polonsky’s libretto is a mere series of episodes, treated however with such art that he has managed to preserve the spirit of Gogol’s text in the form of his polished verses. In Cherevichek Tchaikovsky makes a palpable effort to break away from conventional Italian forms and to write more in the style of Dargomijsky. But, as Stassov has pointed out, this more modern and realistic style is not so well suited to Tchaikovsky, because he is not at his strongest in declamation and recitative. Nor was he quite in sympathy with Gogol’s racy humour which bubbles up under the veneer of Polonsky’s elegant manner. Tchaikovsky was not devoid of a certain subdued and whimsical humour, but his laugh is not the boisterous reaction from despair which we find in so many Slav temperaments. Cherevichek fell as it were between two stools. The young Russian party, who had partially inspired it, considered it lacking in realism and modern feeling; while the public, who hoped for something lively, in the style of “Le Domino Noir,” found an attempt at serious national opera the thing which, above all others, bored them most.
The want of marked success in opera did not discourage Tchaikovsky. Shortly after his disappointment in Cherevichek he requested Stassov to furnish him with a libretto based on Shakespeare’s “Othello.” Stassov was slow to comply with this demand, for he believed the subject to be ill-suited to Tchaikovsky’s genius. At last, however, he yielded to pressure; but the composer’s enthusiasm cooled of its own accord, and he soon abandoned the idea.
During the winter of 1876-1877, he was absorbed in the composition of the Fourth Symphony, which may partially account for the fact that “Othello” ceased to interest him. By May he had completed three movements of the Symphony, when suddenly the tide of operatic passion came surging back, sweeping everything before it. Friend after friend was consulted in the search for a suitable subject. The celebrated singer Madame Lavrovsky suggested Poushkin’s popular novel in verse, “Eugene Oniegin.” “The idea,” says Tchaikovsky, “struck me as curious. Afterwards, while eating a solitary meal in a restaurant, I turned it over in my mind and it did not seem bad. Reading the poem again, I was fascinated. I spent a sleepless night, the result of which was the mise en scène of a charming opera upon Poushkin’s poem.”