Rimsky-Korsakov wrote one more work in a similar style to Mozart and Salieri, the Dramatic Prologue in one act Boyarinya Vera Sheloga, which was really intended to precede The Maid of Pskov and elucidate the history of Olga, the heroine of that opera. The little work was first performed in this way by the Private Opera Company at Moscow in 1898. It tells in fuller detail the story of the two sisters Vera and Nadejda Nassonov, to which Prince Tokmakov refers in his conversation with Matouta in the first act of The Maid of Pskov, and introduces the Boyard Ivan Sheloga and Vlassievna, the faithful nurse of the orphaned Olga. The work contains a charming lullaby sung by Vera to her little daughter. This number is published apart from the Prologue and has become extremely popular with amateur singers.
Sadko, A Legendary Opera (Opera-bylina), in seven tableaux, composed between 1895-1896, is a compromise between lyrical and declamatory opera so skilfully effected that this work has come to be regarded as the perfect fruit of Rimsky-Korsakov’s maturity, and the most complete exposition of his artistic creed. The work was produced by the Private Opera Company at Moscow in December, 1897, and introduced to St. Petersburg by the same company in the following year.
Sekar-Rojansky, a young tenor possessed of a beautiful fresh voice, created the title rôle. The work was received with extraordinary enthusiasm, and shortly afterwards the Directorate of the Imperial Operas, who had at first refused to consider it, took up the opera and staged it with great magnificence. A. M. Vaznietsov, brother of the artist who painted the frescoes of the cathedral of Kiev, was sent to Old Novgorod and other parts of northern Russia to make sketches for the scenery. The archæological details and the landscapes on the margin of Lake Ilmen were faithfully reproduced. The first performance took place at the Maryinsky Theatre in January, 1901, under Napravnik’s direction; on this occasion Davidov impersonated the hero.
At the outset of his career, Rimsky-Korsakov was attracted by this legend of the eleventh century belonging to the Cycle of Novgorod. Sadko is a poor but adventurous minstrel, often referred to in the folk-songs as “the nightingale of Novgorod.” He does not win his renown by chivalrous actions and prowess in the field, like Ilya Mouramets and the heroes of the Cycle of Kiev. The Novgorodians were an energetic but commercial race. Sadko, driven to desperation by poverty, lays a wager against the rich merchants of Novgorod that he will catch gold-fish in Lake Ilmen. The merchants stake their goods, the minstrel all he has—a far more valuable asset—“his dare-devil head,” as the legends say. How Sadko charms the Sea King by his singing and playing upon the gusslee, how he secures the gold-fish and, with them, all the wealth of Novgorod, is told in the ballad of Nejata, the young minstrel. After a while Sadko grows restless in spite of his good fortune. He sets sail with his fleet of merchant vessels in search of fresh adventures. The ships are overtaken by a tempest, and it becomes necessary to propitiate the wrath of the Sea King. Lots are cast, and the unlucky one invariably falls to Sadko. It is characteristic of the astute merchant-hero that he cheats in every possible way in order to avert his doom! Finally, he is cast overboard and drifts away upon a plank, clinging to his cherished gusslee: a pagan Jonah; a Slavonic Arion. His adventures at the bottom of the seas; the Sea King’s welcome to his virtuoso-guest; his efforts to marry Sadko to one of his daughters; the procession of these beautiful sea-maidens—some three hundred in number—demanding of Sadko a judgment far more difficult and delicate than anything Paris was called upon to pronounce; the cleverness with which Sadko extricates himself from the difficult situation, by selecting the only plain lady of the party, so that there is no risk of permanently falling in love with her and forgetting his wife in Novgorod; the wild glee of the Sea King at the playing of the famous minstrel, and his dance, which imperils the earth and can only be stopped by the shattering of the precious gusslee; Sadko’s return to his faithful and anxious wife—all these incidents are set forth in the opera with a Wagnerian luxury of stage accessories and scenic effects.
As regards structure, Sadko combines—as I have said—the lyrical and declamatory elements. It is pre-eminently a national opera in which the composer has conveyed a truthful picture of the customs and sentiments of an archaic period. In Sadko we find many melodies completely modal in character. The Sea Queen’s slumber song in the seventh scene is Dorian, Sadko’s aria in the fifth scene is Phrygian, and so on. The song of Nejata has an accompaniment for harps and pianino which gives the effect of the gusslee.
Besides the national element, Rimsky-Korsakov introduces characteristic songs of other countries. In the scene in which Sadko generously restores to the merchants the goods won from them in his wager, keeping only a fleet of merchant vessels for himself, he requests some of the foreign traders to sing the songs of their distant lands. The Varangian guest sings a song in a brisk, energetic rhythm, quite Scandinavian in character; the Venetian complies with a graceful barcarolle, while the Indian merchant charms the audience with an Oriental melody of rare beauty. The musical interest of Sadko is in fact very great.
If there is any truth in the suggestion that Rimsky-Korsakov composed Mozart and Salieri and dedicated it to Dargomijsky as a kind of recantation of certain Wagnerian methods, such as a limited use of leitmotifs to which he had had recourse in Sadko, then his return to the purely lyrical style in his ninth opera, The Tsar’s Bride (Tsarsky Nievesta), may equally have been a kind of apology to the memory of Glinka. But it seems far more probable that he worked independently of all such ideas and suited the musical style to the subject of the opera. The Tsar’s Bride, in three acts, was produced by the Private Opera Company at Moscow in 1899, Ippolitov-Ivanov being the conductor. From Moscow it travelled first to the provinces, and reached St. Petersburg in the spring of 1900. As it is perhaps the most popular of all Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas, and one that is likely to find its way abroad, it is advisable to give some account of the plot. It is based on one of Mey’s dramas, the subject of which had temporarily attracted Borodin some twenty years earlier. The Oprichnik Gryaznoy falls madly in love with Martha, the beautiful daughter of a merchant of Novgorod named Sobakin; but she is betrothed to the Boyard Lykov. Gryaznoy vows she shall never marry another, and procures from Bomely, court-physician to Ivan the Terrible, a magic potion which is to help his cause. His former mistress Lioubasha overhears the conversation between the Oprichnik and Bomely. She makes a desperate effort to win Gryaznoy back to her, but in vain. In the second act the people are coming away from vespers and talking about the Tsar’s choice of a bride. Martha, with two companions, comes out of the church. While she is standing alone, two men emerge from the shadow of the houses, one of whom is Ivan the Terrible in disguise. He gazes intently at Martha and then goes his way, leaving her vaguely terrified. Meanwhile Lioubasha has been watching Martha from a window. Then she in her turn goes to Bomely and asks him for some potion that will injure her rival. He replies that he will give her what she requires, but the price of it will be a kiss from her lips. Reluctantly she consents. In the third act, Lykov and Gryaznoy are seated at table with the merchant Sobakin, who has just informed them that the wedding of Lykov and Martha must be postponed. Lykov asks Gryaznoy what he would do in his place if by any chance the Tsar’s choice should fall upon Martha. The Oprichnik gives an evasive answer. Meanwhile, in one of the cups of mead poured out by the host, he drops his magic potion, and when Martha joins them at table he offers it to her to drink. Suddenly the maidservant rushes in with the news that a deputation of boyards has arrived, and a moment later Maliouta enters to announce that the Tsar has chosen Martha to be his bride. In the final scene, which takes place in an apartment in the Tsar’s palace, Sobakin is seen bewailing his daughter’s illness. Gryaznoy enters with an order from Ivan to inquire after her health. The Oprichnik believes that her illness is caused by the potion he administered. Presently Maliouta with the rest of the Oprichniki come upon the scene. Gryaznoy informs Martha that her former suitor Lykov, having confessed to the fiendish design of poisoning her, has been executed by order of the Tsar. Martha gives a cry and becomes unconscious. When she comes to herself her mind is affected, and she mistakes Gryaznoy for her lover Lykov, calling him “Ivan” and speaking caressingly to him. Gryaznoy now sees that his plot for getting rid of Lykov has been a failure. Touched by Martha’s madness he is prepared to give himself up to Maliouta for judgment; but the latter gives him an opportunity of inquiring into the deception played upon him by Bomely. Lioubasha now comes forward and confesses that she changed the potion. Gryaznoy stabs her and then imploring Martha’s forgiveness, quits the scene, while the poor mad girl, still mistaking him for her lost lover, cries after him “Come back to-morrow, my Ivan.”
The music of The Tsar’s Bride is melodious; and the orchestration, though simpler than is generally the case with Rimsky-Korsakov, is not lacking in variety and colour. Though by no means the strongest of his operas, it seems to exercise a great attraction for the public; possibly because its nationalism is less strenuously demonstrated than in some of its predecessors.
The Legend of Tsar Saltan, of his Son the famous and doughty Warrior, Prince Gvidon Saltanovich, and of the beautiful Tsarevna Liebed (the Swan-queen), an opera in four acts with a Prologue, the libretto drawn from Poushkin’s poem of the same title, was produced by the Private Opera Company in Moscow in December 1906. Previously to the first performance of the work, an orchestral suite consisting of three of the entr’actes was played in St. Petersburg at one of the concerts of the I. R. M. S. The work follows the model of Sadko rather than that of purely lyrical operas. Here Rimsky-Korsakov makes a more extended and systematic use of the leitmotif. The leading characters, Saltan, Militrissa, Tsarevna Liebed and the Sea Rovers, have their characteristic themes, but a number of minor motives are used in connection with particular sentiments and even to represent various natural objects. The story, which is too long to give in all its details, deals with the adventures of Tsar Saltan and the Three Sisters; the two elders—recalling the story of Cinderella—are jealous of the youngest Militrissa who marries the Tsar’s son, and during Saltan’s absence from home they revenge themselves upon her by sending a false message announcing that she has borne her husband a daughter instead of a son. The tale offers a strange mixture of the fantastic and the realistic. The opera is remarkable for its fine orchestral numbers and the novelty and brilliancy of its instrumentation, and for the free use of folk melodies.[49]
In his eleventh opera, Servilia, Rimsky-Korsakov makes one of his rare excursions in search of a subject outside Russian folk-lore or history. The libretto is based upon a drama by his favourite author Mey, but the scene of the plot is laid in Rome. In Servilia Rimsky-Korsakov returns once more to the declamatory style, as exemplified in Mozart and Salieri, without, however, entirely abandoning the use of the leitmotif. The first performance of the work took place at the Maryinsky Theatre in the autumn of 1902. Servilia’s passionate love for the Tribune Valerius Rusticus, from which she suddenly turns on her conversion to Christianity in the last act of the opera, offers considerable opportunities for psychological delineation. But “the inward strife between her pagan passion and ascetic instincts,” says Cheshikin, “is not enacted on the stage; it takes place chiefly behind the scenes and the spectator is shown only the result.” It is not surprising that the success of the opera does not lie in the delineation of the heroine but in certain interesting details, and especially in the skilful use of local colour. The Hymn to Athena in the first act; the Anacreontic song for Montanus in the second act (in the Mixolydian), with its characteristic figures of accompaniment for flute; the Dance of the Mænads; and a graceful Spinning-song for female voices in the third act, are the most successful numbers in the work. On the whole, Servilia is regarded by Russian critics as a retrograde step after Sadko and Tsar Saltan.
Kastchei the Immortal is described as “a legend of the autumn” in one act and three scenes, with uninterrupted music throughout. The sketch of the libretto was given to the composer by E. M. Petrovsky and is a free adaptation of a very old fairy tale. The opera was produced by the Private Opera Company in Moscow in 1902, and aroused a good deal of comment in consequence of several new procedures on the part of the composer, revealing a more decisive tendency to follow in the steps of Wagner. The charge of imitation is based upon the use of leitmotifs and also upon the content of the libretto, in which, as in many of Wagner’s operas, the idea of redemption plays a prominent part. Kastcheievna, the daughter of the wicked wizard Kastchei, is redeemed by intense suffering from her own jealous fury, when she lets fall a tear, in the crystal sphere of which Kastchei has enclosed his own fate. But Rimsky-Korsakov does not give us merely an internal drama in the Wagnerian sense, for we see enacted upon the stage the wholly external drama of the rescue of the unhappy Tsarevna, spell-bound by the evil Kastchei, at the hands of Ivan Korolevich. The opera ends with the downfall of the barriers which shut out the gloomy, autumnal, sin-oppressed kingdom of Kastchei from the happier world outside. “This symbolism,” says Cheshikin, “may be taken in its widest acceptation; but in anything which is freed from a despotic power, our public is prepared to see a social tendency which is to their taste and they applaud it with satisfaction.” Kastchei chanced to be the opera which was represented in St. Petersburg (in March, 1905) at the moment when Rimsky-Korsakov was expelled from his professorship at the Conservatoire in consequence of his frank criticisms of the existing bureaucracy, and each representation was made the occasion of an ovation in his honour. The opera contains many fine moments, such as the fierce chorus—a kind of trepak—sung by the snow-spirits at the close of the first act; the two contrasting love-duets, one which Ivan Korolevich sings with Kastcheievna, and a later one in which the Tsarevna takes part, in the third act; and the sinister slumber-song which the unhappy Tsarevna is forced to sing for Kastchei, while wishing that his sleep was the sleep of death, is distinguished for its marked originality. As regards harmony, Rimsky-Korsakov in Kastchei indulges in a good deal that is piquant and unusual; there is much chromaticism in the fantastic scenes and a general tendency to what one critic describes as “studied cacophany,” which is unusual in the work of this composer. Kastchei stands out as one of the most Wagnerian among Russian operas.
Pan Voyevode was completed in 1903, and produced by the Private Opera Company in St. Petersburg in October, 1904. The scene of the libretto is laid in Poland about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the story concerns the love affairs of Chaplinsky, a young nobleman, and Maria, a poor orphan girl of good family. While out hunting, Pan Voyevode—governor of the district—sees Maria and loses his heart to her. At his command the lovers are separated by force, and the Voyevode declares his intention of marrying Maria. Yadviga, a rich widow, who has claims upon the Voyevode, determines to prevent the marriage at any cost. She takes counsel with a sorcerer, from whom she procures poison. The preparations for the wedding are all made, and the Voyevode is entertaining his friends at a banquet, when Yadviga appears, an uninvited guest, to warn him that Chaplinsky and his friends are coming to effect the rescue of Maria. At the banquet Maria sings the “Song of the Swan,” but its yearning sadness oppresses the Voyevode and his guests. Suddenly the injured lover bursts into the hall with his followers and a wild scuffle ensues. In the last act, Chaplinsky having been taken prisoner and condemned to death, the interrupted festival recommences. In the meantime Yadviga has poured poison into Maria’s goblet. Needless to say that in the end the cups get changed and it is the Voyevode who drinks the fatal potion. Maria, after a prayer by his dead body, orders the release of Chaplinsky and all ends happily.
Pan Voyevode gives occasion for a whole series of Polish dances, a Krakoviak, a Kazachok, or Cossack dance, a Polonaise, and a Mazurka. The incantation scene, when Yadviga seeks the sorcerer, and the Song of the Swan are favourite numbers in the work. Pan Voyevode was produced in Moscow in 1905 under the conductorship of Rachmaninov.
The idea of the Legendary Opera, The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, was in Rimsky-Korsakov’s mind for nearly ten years before he actually composed the work between 1903-1905. The first performance in St. Petersburg took place at the Maryinsky Theatre early in the spring of 1907, and Moscow heard the opera in the following season. The opera starts with an orchestral introduction based upon a folk-melody. There is great charm in the opening scene laid in the forests surrounding Little Kitezh, where Fevronia is discovered sitting among the tall grasses and singing a song in praise of all living creatures. There she is joined by a bear, and a crane, and other birds, all of which she welcomes as friends; and there the young Prince Vsievolod sees her and loses his heart to the beautiful child of nature. Their love scene is interrupted by the sound of horns, introducing a company of archers in search of the Prince. Fevronia then finds out her lover’s identity. The next act shows the market-place in Little Kitezh crowded with all manner of archaic Russian types: a showman leading a bear, a minstrel singing and playing the gusslee, old men and women, young men and girls—one of those animated canvases which recall certain pages in Moussorgsky’s operas and are the precursors of similar scenes in Stravinsky’s Petroushka. Some “Superior People” are grumbling at the marriage of the Prince to the unknown and homeless girl Fevronia. Soon the bride appears accompanied by the wedding procession. She receives the congratulations of the populace, but the “Superior People” show some disdain. Suddenly a fresh group of people rush on in terror, followed by the Tatars who break up the crowd and seize Fevronia. Under threats of torture they compel the crazy drunkard Kouterma to guide them to Kitezh the Great. Fevronia puts up a prayer for the city as the Tatars carry her off on one of their rough carts.
The scene changes to Kitezh the Great, where the old Prince and his son, the bridegroom, are listening to the account given by the fugitives of the destruction of Little Kitezh by the Tatars. All are horrified to hear that Fevronia has fallen into their ruthless hands. The Prince assembles his soldiers and goes out to meet the enemy. While the women are singing a chorus of lamentation, the church bell begins to ring of its own accord. The old Prince declares it is a miraculous sign that the town will be saved. The curtain rises next on the Tatar encampment on the shores of the Shining Lake. Fevronia in despair is still sitting in the Tatars’ cart. The half-crazy Kouterma has been bound hand and foot because the Tatars suspected him. Their two leaders have fought; one is left dead on the ground; all the others have fallen asleep. Fevronia takes a knife from the dead Tatar chief and cuts Kouterma’s bonds. He is about to escape when the sound of a bell arrests him. He rushes madly to the lake with the intention of drowning himself, but at that moment a ray of sunlight falls on the water in which he sees reflected the city of Kitezh the Invisible. Now he really makes his escape, taking Fevronia with him. The Tatars are awakened, and running to the edge of the lake, they, too, see the miraculous reflection and exclaim in terror: “Awful in truth is the God of the Russians.”
Fevronia passes some terrible hours alone in the gloom of the enchanted forest with Kouterma; but she prays, and presently he leaves her. Then little lamps appear in the trees, and gold and silver flowers spring up in the grass, while the Paradise Birds, Aklonost and Sirin, sing to comfort her. Aklonost tells her he is the messenger of death. She replies that she has no fear of death, and weaves herself a garland of immortal flowers. Presently the spirit of the young Prince appears to her. He tells her that he has been killed, “but now,” he says, “thank God, I am alive.” He gives Fevronia some bread, bidding her eat before she starts on her long journey; “who tastes our bread knows eternal happiness,” he says. Fevronia eats and throws some of the crumbs to the birds; then with a prayer, “Christ receive me into the habitations of the just,” she disappears with the spirit of the Prince. After an orchestral interlude, the curtain rises upon the apotheosis of the City of Kitezh, and the Paradise Birds are heard proclaiming: “The Celestial gates are open to us; time has ceased; Eternity has begun.” The people come out to welcome Fevronia and the Prince, and sing their epithalamium. Fevronia now learns that Kitezh did not fall, but only disappeared; that the northern lights bore the prayers of the just to heaven; and also the cause of the blessed and miraculous sound heard by Kouterma. Then the Prince leads his bride into the cathedral while the people sing: “Here shall there be no more tears or sorrow, but everlasting joy and peace.”
Rimsky-Korsakov died of angina pectoris on June 8th, 1908 at Lioubensk, near St. Petersburg, where he was spending the summer with his family. In the previous year he had finished his last opera The Golden Cock, the production of which was not sanctioned by the Censor during the composer’s lifetime. It is said that this vexation, following upon his difficulties with the authorities of the Conservatoire, helped to hasten his end.
The Golden Cock is composed to a libretto by V. Bielsky, based upon Poushkin’s well-known poem. The author of the book says in his preface to the opera: “the purely human nature of Poushkin’s Golden Cock—that instructive tragi-comedy of the unhappy consequences following upon mortal passions and weaknesses—permits us to place the plot in any region and in any period.” In spite of the Eastern origin of the tale, and the Italian names, Duodo and Guidone, all which constitutes the historical character of the story and recalls the simple customs and the daily life of the Russian people, with its crude, strong colouring, its exuberance and liberty, so dear to the artist. The work opens with a Prologue, in which the Astrologer tells us that although the opera is
In the first scene we are introduced to a hall in the Palace of King Dodon, where he is holding a council with his Boyards. He tells them that he is weary of kingly responsibilities and especially of the perpetual warfare with his hostile neighbours, and that he longs to rest for a while. First he asks the advice of his heir, Prince Gvidon, who says that instead of fighting on the frontier he should withdraw his troops and let them surround the capital, which should first be well provisioned. Then, while the enemy was destroying the rest of the country, the King might repose and think of some new way of circumventing him. But the old Voyevode Polkan does not approve of the project, for he thinks it will be worse to have the hostile army surrounding the city, and perhaps attacking the King himself. Nor does he agree with the equally foolish advice of the King’s younger son Aphron. Very soon the whole assembly is quarrelling as to the best way out of the difficulty, when the Astrologer arrives upon the scene. He offers King Dodon a present of a Golden Cock which would always give warning in case of danger. At first the King does not believe him, but the cock is brought in and cries at once: “Kikeriki, kikerikou! Be on your guard, mind what you do!” The King is enchanted and feels that he can now take his ease. He offers to give the Astrologer whatever reward he asks. The latter replies that he does not want treasures or honours, but a diploma drawn up in legal form. “Legal,” says the King, “I don’t know what you mean. My desires and caprices are the only laws here; but you may rest assured of my gratitude.” Dodon’s bed is brought in, and the chatelaine of the Palace tucks him up and keeps watch by him until he falls into a sound sleep. Suddenly the shrill crowing of the Golden Cock awakens the King and all his attendants. The first time this happens he has to send his unwilling sons to the war; the second time he is obliged to go himself. There is a good deal of comic business about the departure of the King, who is obviously afraid of his warhorse.
In the second act Dodon and the Voyevode Polkan, with their army, come to a narrow pass among the rocks which has evidently been the scene of a battle. The corpses of the warriors lie pale in the moonlight, while birds of prey hover around the spot. Here Dodon comes suddenly upon the dead bodies of his two sons, who have apparently killed each other. The wretched, egotistical king is reduced to tears at the sight. His attention is soon distracted, for, as the distant mist clears away, he perceives under the shelter of the hillside a large tent lit up by the first rays of the sun. He thinks it is the tent of the hostile leader, and Polkan endeavours to lead on the timid troops in hopes of capturing him. But, to the great astonishment of the King and his Voyevode, a beautiful woman emerges from the tent followed by her slaves bearing musical instruments. She sings a song of greeting to the dawn. Dodon approaches and asks her name. She replies modestly, with downcast eyes, that she is the Queen of Shemakha. Then follows a long scene in which she lures on the old King until he is hopelessly infatuated with her beauty. Her recital of her own attractions is made without any reserve, and soon she has completely turned Dodon’s head. She insists on his singing, and mocks at his unmusical voice; she forces him to dance until he falls exhausted to the ground, and laughs at his uncouth movements. This scene really constitutes the ballet of the opera. Finally the Queen of Shemakha consents to return to his capital and become his bride. Amid much that is genuinely comic there are a few touches of unpleasant realism in this scene, in which the ineffectual, indolent, and sensual old King is fooled to the top of his bent by the capricious and heartless queen. Here we have travelled far from the beautiful idealism of The City of Kitezh; the humour of the situation has a sharp tang to it which belies the spirit of Poushkin and Russian humour in general; we begin to speculate as to whether Bielsky has not studied to some purpose the plays of George Bernard Shaw, so much read in Russia.
The curtain rises in the third act upon another of those scenes of bustle and vigorous movement characteristic of Russian opera. The people are awaiting the return of King Dodon. “Jump and dance, grin and bow, show your loyalty but don’t expect anything in return,” says the sardonic chatelaine, Amelfa. There enters a wonderful procession which reminds us of an Eastern fairy tale: the advance guard of the King; the Queen of Shemakha, in a bizarre costume, followed by a grotesque cortege of giants, dwarfs, and black slaves. The spectacle for the time being allays the evident anxiety of the people. As the King and Queen pass by in their golden chariot the former appears aged and care-worn; but he gazes on his companion with uxorious tenderness. The Queen shows evident signs of boredom. At this juncture the Astrologer makes his appearance and a distant storm, long threatening, bursts over the city. The King gives a flattering welcome to the Astrologer and expresses his readiness to reward him for the gift of the Golden Cock. The Astrologer asks nothing less than the gift of the Queen of Shemakha herself. The King refuses with indignation, and orders the soldiers to remove the Astrologer. But the latter resists, and reminds Dodon once more of his promise. The King, beside himself with anger, hits the Astrologer on the head with his sceptre. General consternation in the crowd. The Queen laughs a cold, cruel laugh, but the King is terrified, for he perceives that he has killed the Astrologer. He tries to recover himself and takes comfort from the presence of the Queen, but now she openly throws off all pretence of affection and drives him away from her. Suddenly the Cock gives out a shrill, threatening cry; he flies on to the King’s head and with one blow of his beak pierces his skull. The King falls dead. A loud clap of thunder is followed by darkness, during which the silvery laugh of the Queen is heard. When it grows light again Queen and Cock have both disappeared. The unhappy and bewildered people sing a chorus of regret for the King: “Our Prince without a peer, was prudent, wise, and kind; his rage was terrible, he was often implacable; he treated us like dogs; but when once his rage was over he was a Golden King. O terrible disaster! Where shall we find another king!” The opera concludes with a short Epilogue in which the Astrologer bids the spectators dry their tears, since the whole story is but fiction, and in the kingdom of Dodon there were but two real human beings, himself and the Queen.
The music of this opera is appropriately wild and barbaric. We feel that in spite of forty years development it is essentially the work of the same temperament that produced the Symphonic Poems “Sadko” and the Oriental symphony “Antar.”
A close study of the works of Rimsky-Korsakov reveals a distinguished musical personality; a thinker; a fastidious and exquisite craftsman; in a word—an artist of a refined and discriminating type who concerns himself very little with the demands and appreciation of the general public. Outside Russia, he has been censured for his subserviency to national influences, his exclusive devotion to a patriotic ideal. On the other hand, some Russian critics have accused him of introducing Wagnerism into national opera. This is only true in so far that he has grafted upon opera of the older, more melodic type the effective employment of some modern methods, more particularly the moderate use of the leitmotif. As regards orchestration, I have already claimed for him the fullest recognition. He has a remarkable faculty for the invention of new, brilliant, prismatic orchestral effects, and is a master in the skilful employment of onomatopœia. Those who assert—not entirely without reason—that Rimsky-Korsakov is not a melodist of copious and vivid inspiration must concede the variety, colour, independence and flashing wit of his accompaniments. This want of balance between the essential and accessory is certainly a characteristic of his music. Some of his songs and their accompaniments remind me of those sixteenth-century portraits in which some slim, colourless, but distinguished Infanta is gowned in a robe of brocade rich enough to stand by itself, without the negative aid of the wearer.
Rimsky-Korsakov does not correspond to our stereotyped idea of the Russian temperament. He is not lacking in warmth of feeling, which kindles to passion in some of his songs; but his moods of exaggerated emotion are very rare. His prevailing tones are bright and serene, and occasionally flushed with glowing colour. If he rarely shocks our hearts, as Moussorgsky does, into a poignant realisation of darkness and despair, neither has he any of the hysterical tendency which sometimes detracts from the impressiveness of Tchaikovsky’s cris de cœur.
When a temperament, musically endowed, sees its subject with the direct and observant vision of the painter, instead of dreaming it through a mist of subjective exaltation, we get a type of mind that naturally tends to a programme, more or less clearly defined. Rimsky-Korsakov belongs to this class. Labelled or not, we feel in all his music the desire to depict.
This representative of a school, reputed to be revolutionary, who has arrayed himself in the full panoply of musical erudition and scholarly restraint; this poet whose imagination revels in the folk-lore of Russia and the fantastic legends of the East; this professor who has written fugues and counterpoints by the dozen; this man who looked like an austere school-master, and can on occasion startle us with an almost barbaric exuberance of colour and energy, offers, to my mind, one of the most fascinating analytical studies in all contemporary music.
TYPICALLY Russian by temperament and in his whole attitude to life; cosmopolitan in his academic training and in his ready acceptance of Western ideals; Tchaikovsky, although the period of his activity coincided with that of Balakirev, Cui, and Rimsky-Korsakov, cannot be included amongst the representatives of the national Russian school. His ideals were more diffused, and his ambitions reached out towards more universal appreciation. Nor had he any of the communal instincts which brought together and cemented in a long fellowship the circle of Balakirev. He belonged in many respects to an older generation, the “Byroniacs,” the incurable pessimists of Lermontov’s day, to whom life appeared as “a journey made in the night time.” He was separated from the nationalists, too, by an influence which had been gradually becoming obliterated in Russian music since the time of Glinka—I allude to the influence of Italian opera.
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.
THE GREAT OPERA HOUSE, MOSCOW
THE GREAT OPERA HOUSE, MOSCOW
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.”
Some of my readers may remember the production of Eugene Oniegin in this country, conducted by Henry J. Wood, during Signor Lago’s opera season in the autumn of 1892. It was revived in 1906 at Covent Garden, but without any regard for its national setting. Mme. Destinn, with all her charm and talent, did not seem at home in the part of Tatiana; and to those who had seen the opera given in Russia the performance seemed wholly lacking in the right, intimate spirit. It was interpreted better by the Moody-Manners Opera Company, in the course of the same year.
The subject was in many respects ideally suited to Tchaikovsky—the national colour suggested by a master hand, the delicate realism which Poushkin was the first to introduce into Russian poetry, the elegiac sentiment which pervades the work, and, above all, its intensely subjective character, were qualities which appealed to the composer’s temperament.
In May 1877 he wrote to his brother: “I know the opera does not give great scope for musical treatment, but a wealth of poetry, and a deeply interesting tale, more than atone for all its faults.” And again, replying to some too-captious critic, he flashes out in its defence: “Let it lack scenic effect, let it be wanting in action! I am in love with Tatiana, I am under the spell of Poushkin’s verse, and I am drawn to compose the music as it were by an irresistible attraction.” This was the true mood of inspiration—the only mood for success.
We must judge the opera Eugene Oniegin not so much as Tchaikovsky’s greatest intellectual, or even emotional, effort, but as the outcome of a passionate, single-hearted impulse. Consequently the sense of joy in creation, of perfect reconciliation with his subject, is conveyed in every bar of the music. As a work of art, Eugene Oniegin defies criticism, as do some charming but illusive personalities. It would be a waste of time to pick out its weaknesses, which are many, and its absurdities, which are not a few. It answers to no particular standard of dramatic truth or serious purpose. It is too human, too lovable, to fulfil any lofty intention. One might liken it to the embodiment of some captivating, wayward, female spirit which subjugates all emotional natures, against their reason, if not against their will. The story is as obsolete as a last year’s fashion-plate. The hero is the demon-hero of the early romantic reaction—“a Muscovite masquerading in the cloak of Childe Harold.” His friend Lensky is an equally romantic being; more blighted than demoniac, and overshadowed by that gentle and fatalistic melancholy which endeared him still more to the heart of Tchaikovsky. The heroine is a survival of an even earlier type. Tatiana, with her young-lady-like sensibilities, her superstitions, her girlish gush, corrected by her primness of propriety, might have stepped out of one of Richardson’s novels. She is a Russian Pamela, a belated example of the decorous female, rudely shaken by the French Revolution, and doomed to final annihilation in the pages of Georges Sand. But in Russia, where the emancipation of women was of later date, this virtuous and victimised personage lingered on into the nineteenth century, and served as a foil to the Byronic and misanthropical heroes of Poushkin and Lermontov.
The music of Eugene Oniegin is the child of Tchaikovsky’s fancy, born of his passing love for the image of Tatiana, and partaking of her nature—never rising to great heights of passion, nor touching depths of tragic despair, tinged throughout by those moods of romantic melancholy and exquisitely tender sentiment which the composer and his heroine share in common.
The opera was first performed by the students of the Moscow Conservatoire in March, 1879. Perhaps the circumstances were not altogether favourable to its success; for although the composer’s friends were unanimous in their praise, the public did not at first show extraordinary enthusiasm. Apart from the fact that the subject probably struck them as daringly unconventional and lacking in sensational developments, a certain section of purists were shocked at Poushkin’s chef-d’œuvre being mutilated for the purposes of a libretto, and resented the appearance of the almost canonized figure of Tatiana upon the stage. Gradually, however, Eugene Oniegin acquired a complete sway over the public taste and its serious rivals became few in number. There are signs, however, that its popularity is on the wane.
From childhood Tchaikovsky had cherished a romantic devotion for the personality of Joan of Arc, about whom he had written a poem at the age of seven. After the completion of Eugene Oniegin, looking round for a fresh operatic subject, his imagination reverted to the heroine of his boyhood. During a visit to Florence, in December, 1878, Tchaikovsky first approached this idea with something like awe and agitation. “My difficulty,” he wrote, “does not lie in any lack of inspiration, but rather in its overwhelming force. The idea has taken furious possession of me. For three whole days I have been tormented by the thought that while the material is so vast, human strength and time amount to so little. I want to complete the whole work in an hour, as sometimes happens to one in a dream.” From Florence, Tchaikovsky went to Paris for a few days, and by the end of December settled at Clarens, on the Lake of Geneva, to compose his opera in these peaceful surroundings. To his friend and benefactress, Nadejda von Meck, he wrote expressing his satisfaction with his music, but complaining of his difficulty in constructing the libretto. This task he had undertaken himself, using Joukovsky’s translation of Schiller’s poem as his basis. It is a pity he did not adhere more closely to the original work, instead of substituting for Schiller’s ending the gloomy and ineffective last scene, of his own construction, in which Joan is actually represented at the stake surrounded by the leaping flames.
Tchaikovsky worked at The Maid of Orleans with extraordinary rapidity. He was enamoured of his subject and convinced of ultimate success. From Clarens he sent a droll letter to his friend and publisher Jurgenson, in Moscow, which refers to his triple identity as critic, composer, and writer of song-words. It is characteristic of the man in his lighter moods:
“There are three celebrities in the world with whom you are well acquainted: the rather poor rhymer ‘N. N.’; ‘B. L.,’ formerly musical critic of the “Viedomosti,” and the composer and ex-professor Mr. Tchaikovsky. A few hours ago Mr. T. invited the other two gentlemen to the piano and played them the whole of the second act of The Maid of Orleans. Mr. Tchaikovsky is very intimate with these gentlemen, consequently he had no difficulty in conquering his nervousness and played them his new work with spirit and fire. You should have witnessed their delight.... Finally the composer, who had long been striving to preserve his modesty intact, went completely off his head, and all three rushed on to the balcony like madmen to soothe their excited nerves in the fresh air.”
The Maid of Orleans won little more than a succès d’estime. There is much that is effective in this opera, but at the same time it displays those weaknesses which are most characteristic of Tchaikovsky’s unsettled convictions in the matter of style. The transition from an opera so Russian in colouring and so lyrical in sentiment as Eugene Oniegin to one so universal and heroic in character as The Maid of Orleans, seems to have presented difficulties. Just as the national significance of The Oprichnik suffered from moments of purely Italian influence, so The Maid of Orleans contains incongruous lapses into the Russian style. What have the minstrels at the court of Charles VI. in common with a folk-song of Malo-Russian origin? Or why is the song of Agnes Sorel so reminiscent of the land of the steppes and birch forests? The gem of the opera is undoubtedly Joan’s farewell to the scenes of her childhood, which is full of touching, idyllic sentiment.
In complete contrast to the fervid enthusiasm which carried him through the creation of The Maid of Orleans was the spirit in which Tchaikovsky started upon his next opera. One of his earliest references to Mazeppa occurs in a letter to Nadejda von Meck, written in the spring of 1882. “A year ago,” he says, “Davidov (the ’cellist) sent me the libretto of Mazeppa, adapted by Bourenin from Poushkin’s poem ‘Poltava.’ I tried to set one or two scenes to music, but made no progress. Then one fine day I read the libretto again and also Poushkin’s poem. I was stirred by some of the verses, and began to compose the scene between Maria and Mazeppa. Although I have not experienced the profound creative joy I felt while working at Eugene Oniegin, I go on with the opera because I have made a start and in its way it is a success.”
Not one of Tchaikovsky’s operas was born to a more splendid destiny. In August, 1883, a special meeting was held by the directors of the Grand Opera in St. Petersburg to discuss the simultaneous production of the opera in both capitals. Tchaikovsky was invited to be present, and was so astonished at the lavishness of the proposed expenditure that he felt convinced the Emperor himself had expressed a wish that no expense should be spared in mounting Mazeppa. It is certain the royal family took a great interest in this opera, which deals with so stirring a page in Russian history.
The Mazeppa of Poushkin’s masterpiece does not resemble the imaginary hero of Byron’s romantic poem. He is dramatically, but realistically, depicted as the wily and ambitious soldier of fortune; a brave leader, at times an impassioned lover, and an inexorable foe. Tchaikovsky has not given a very powerful musical presentment of this daring and passionate Cossack, who defied even Peter the Great. But the characterisation of the heroine’s father Kochubey, the tool and victim of Mazeppa’s ambition, is altogether admirable. The monologue in the fortress of Bielotserkov, where Kochubey is kept a prisoner after Mazeppa has treacherously laid upon him the blame of his own conspiracy, is one of Tchaikovsky’s finest pieces of declamation. Most of his critics are agreed that this number, with Tatiana’s famous Letter Scene in the second act of Eugene Oniegin, are the gems of his operatic works, and display his powers of psychological analysis at their highest.
The character of Maria, the unfortunate heroine of this opera, is also finely conceived. Tchaikovsky is almost always stronger in the delineation of female than of male characters. “In this respect,” says Cheshikin, in his volume on Russian Opera, “he is the Tourgeniev of music.” Maria has been separated from her first love by the passion with which the fascinating Hetman of Cossacks succeeds in inspiring her. She only awakens from her infatuation when she discovers all his cruelty and treachery towards her father. After the execution of the latter, and the confiscation of his property, the unhappy girl becomes crazed. She wanders—a kind of Russian Ophelia—back to the old homestead, and arrives just in time to witness an encounter between Mazeppa and her first lover, Andrew. Mazeppa wounds Andrew fatally, and, having now attained his selfish ends, abandons the poor mad girl to her fate. Then follows the most pathetic scene in the opera. Maria does not completely recognise her old lover, nor does she realise that he is dying. Taking the young Cossack in her arms, she speaks to him as to a child, and unconsciously lulls him into the sleep of death with a graceful, innocent slumber song. This melody, so remote from the tragedy of the situation, produces an effect more poignant than any dirge. Mazeppa, partly because of the unrelieved gloom of the subject, has never enjoyed the popularity of Eugene Oniegin. Yet it holds its place in the repertory of Russian opera, and deservedly, since it contains some of Tchaikovsky’s finest inspirations.
Charodeika (“The Enchantress”) followed Mazeppa in 1887, and was a further step towards purely dramatic and national opera. Tchaikovsky himself thought highly of this work, and declared he was attracted to it by a deep-rooted desire to illustrate in music the saying of Goethe: “das Ewigweibliche zieht uns hinan,” and to demonstrate the fatal witchery of woman’s beauty, as Verdi had done in “La Traviata” and Bizet in “Carmen.” The Enchantress was first performed at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, in October 1887. Tchaikovsky himself conducted the first performances, and, having hoped for a success, was deeply mortified when, on the fourth performance, he mounted to the conductor’s desk without a sign of applause. For the first time the composer complained bitterly of the attitude of the press, to whom he attributed this failure. As a matter of fact, the criticisms upon Charodeika were less hostile than on some previous occasions; but perhaps for this reason they were none the less damning. It had become something like a pose to misunderstand any effort on Tchaikovsky’s part to develop the purely dramatic side of his musical gifts. He was certainly very strongly attracted to lyric opera; and it was probably as much natural inclination as deference to critical opinion which led him back to this form in The Queen of Spades (“Pique-Dame”).
The libretto of this opera, one of the best ever set by the composer, was originally prepared by Modeste Tchaikovsky for a musician who afterwards declined to make use of it. In 1889 the Director of the Opera suggested that the subject would suit Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. The opera was commissioned, and all arrangements made for its production before a note of it was written. The actual composition was completed in six weeks, during a visit to Florence.
The story of The Queen of Spades is borrowed from a celebrated prose-tale of the same name, by the poet Poushkin. The hero is of the romantic type, like Manfred, Réné, Werther, or Lensky in Eugene Oniegin—a type which always appealed to Tchaikovsky, whose cast of mind, with the exception of one or two peculiarly Russian qualities, seems far more in harmony with the romantic first than with the realistic second half of the nineteenth century.
Herman, a young lieutenant of hussars, a passionate gambler, falls in love with Lisa, whom he has only met walking in the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg. He discovers that she is the grand-daughter of an old Countess, once well known as “the belle of St. Petersburg,” but celebrated in her old age as the most assiduous and fortunate of card-players. On account of her uncanny appearance and reputation she goes by the name of “The Queen of Spades.” These two women exercise a kind of occult influence over the impressionable Herman. With Lisa he forgets the gambler’s passion in the sincerity of his love; with the old Countess he finds himself a prey to the most sinister apprehensions and impulses. Rumour has it that the Countess possesses the secret of three cards, the combination of which is accountable for her extraordinary luck at the gaming-table. Herman, who is needy, and knows that without money he can never hope to win Lisa, determines at any cost to discover the Countess’s secret. Lisa has just become engaged to the wealthy Prince Yeletsky, but she loves Herman. Under pretext of an assignation with Lisa, he manages to conceal himself in the old lady’s bedroom at night. When he suddenly appears, intending to make her divulge her secret, he gives her such a shock that she dies of fright without telling him the names of the cards. Herman goes half-mad with remorse, and is perpetually haunted by the apparition of the Countess. The apparition now shows him the three fatal cards.
The night after her funeral he goes to the gaming-house and plays against his rival Yeletsky. Twice he wins on the cards shown him by the Countess’s ghost. On the third card he stakes all he possesses, and turns up—not the expected ace, but the Queen of Spades. At that moment he sees a vision of the Countess, who smiles triumphantly and vanishes. Herman in despair puts an end to his life.
The subject, although somewhat melodramatic, offers plenty of incident and its thrill is enhanced by the introduction of the supernatural element. The work entirely engrossed Tchaikovsky. “I composed this opera with extraordinary joy and fervour,” he wrote to the Grand Duke Constantine, “and experienced so vividly in myself all that happens in the tale, that at one time I was actually afraid of the spectre of the Queen of Spades. I can only hope that all my creative fervour, my agitation and my enthusiasm will find an echo in the hearts of my audience.” In this he was not disappointed. The Queen of Spades, first performed in St. Petersburg in December, 1890, soon took a strong hold on the public, and now vies in popularity with Eugene Oniegin. It is strange that this opera has never found its way to the English stage. Less distinctively national than Eugene Oniegin, its psychological problem is stronger, its dramatic appeal more direct; consequently it would have a greater chance of success.
Iolanthe, a lyric opera in one act, was Tchaikovsky’s last production for the stage. It was first given in St. Petersburg in December, 1893, shortly after the composer’s death. “In Iolanthe,” says Cheshikin, “Tchaikovsky has added one more tender and inspired creation to his gallery of female portraits ... a figure reminding us at once of Desdemona and Ophelia.” The music of Iolanthe is not strong, but it is pervaded by an atmosphere of tender and inconsolable sadness; by something which seems a faint and weak echo of the profoundly emotional note sounded in the “Pathetic” Symphony.
We may sum up Tchaikovsky’s operatic development as follows: Beginning with conventional Italian forms in The Oprichnik he passed in Cherevichek to more modern methods, to the use of melodic recitative and ariosos; while Eugene Oniegin shows a combination of both these styles. This first operatic period is purely lyrical. Afterwards, in The Maid of Orleans, Mazeppa, and Charodeika, he passed through a second period of dramatic tendency. With Pique-Dame he reaches perhaps the height of his operatic development; but this work is the solitary example of a third period which we may characterise as lyrico-dramatic. In Iolanthe he shows a tendency to return to simple lyrical forms.
From the outset of his career he was equally attracted to the dramatic and symphonic elements in music. Of the two, opera had perhaps the greater attraction for him. The very intensity of its fascination seems to have stood in the way of his complete success. Once bitten by an operatic idea, he went blindly and uncritically forward, believing in his subject, in the quality of his work, and in its ultimate triumph, with that kind of undiscerning optimism to which the normally pessimistic sometimes fall unaccountable victims. The history of his operas repeats itself: a passion for some particular subject, feverish haste to embody his ideas; certainty of success; then disenchantment, self-criticism, and the hankering to remake and remodel which pursued him through life.
Only a few of Tchaikovsky’s operas seem able to stand the test of time. Eugene Oniegin and The Queen of Spades achieved popular success, and The Oprichnik and Mazeppa have kept their places in the repertory of the opera houses in St. Petersburg and in the provinces; but the rest must be reckoned more or less as failures. Considering Tchaikovsky’s reputation, and the fact that his operas were never allowed to languish in obscurity, but were all brought out under the most favourable circumstances, there must be some reason for this luke-warm attitude on the part of the public, of which he himself was often painfully aware. The choice of subjects may have had something to do with this; for the books of The Oprichnik and Mazeppa, though dramatic, are exceedingly lugubrious. But Polonsky’s charming text to Cherevichek should at least have pleased a Russian audience.
I find another reason for the comparative failure of so many of Tchaikovsky’s operas. It was not so much that the subjects in themselves were poor, as that they did not always suit the temperament of the composer; and he rarely took this fact sufficiently into consideration. Tchaikovsky’s outlook was essentially subjective, individual, particular. He himself knew very well what was requisite for the creation of a great and effective opera: “breadth, simplicity, and an eye to decorative effect,” as he says in a letter to Nadejda von Meck. But it was exactly in these qualities, which would have enabled him to treat such subjects as The Oprichnik, The Maid of Orleans, and Mazeppa, with greater power and freedom, that Tchaikovsky was lacking. In all these operas there are beautiful moments; but they are almost invariably the moments in which individual emotion is worked up to intensely subjective expression, or phases of elegiac sentiment in which his own temperament could have full play.
Tchaikovsky had great difficulty in escaping from his intensely emotional personality, and in viewing life through any eyes but his own. He reminds us of one of those actors who, with all their power of touching our hearts, never thoroughly conceal themselves under the part they are acting. Opera, above all, cannot be “a one-man piece.” For its successful realisation it demands breadth of conception, variety of sentiment and sympathy, powers of subtle adaptability to all kinds of situations and emotions other than our own. In short, opera is the one form of musical art in which the objective outlook is indispensable. Whereas in lyric poetry self-revelation is a virtue; in the drama self-restraint and breadth of view are absolute conditions of greatness and success. We find the man reflected in Shakespeare’s sonnets, but humanity in his plays. Tchaikovsky’s nature was undoubtedly too emotional and self-centred for dramatic uses. To say this, is not to deny his genius; it is merely an attempt to show its qualities and its limitations. Tchaikovsky had genius, as Shelley, as Byron, as Heine, as Lermontov had genius; not as Shakespeare, as Goethe, as Wagner had it. As Byron could never have conceived “Julius Cæsar” or “Twelfth Night,” so Tchaikovsky could never have composed such an opera as “Die Meistersinger.” Of Tchaikovsky’s operas, the examples which seem destined to live longest are those into which he was able, by the nature of their literary contents, to infuse most of his exclusive temperament and lyrical inspiration.