by Robert Karnes

Created on: January 09, 2007   Last Updated: August 23, 2011

The pending release of world-renowned soprano Anna Netrebko doing arias from her native Russia is a reminder of the wealth of treasures in this repertoire that remain largely hidden. The failure of Russian opera to establish itself in Western opera houses was neither a result of the Cold War, nor the lack of commercial viability of composers such as Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky or Rimsky-Korsakov.

It was mainly due to the librettos being printed in cyrillic script. Singers could not enunciate their lines (even badly), and the effort and cost of translation made Western opera promoters shy away from Russian opera. It was not the quality of music, either. In fact, Borodin's "Prince Igor" bears the distinction of being the only (shockingly) opera to be adapted as a Broadway musical - "Kismet".

Anyone seeking to enrich their understanding and appreciation of Russian opera is encouraged to seek out and collect conductor Valery Gergiev's groundbreaking 1990s recordings with the Kirov opera company on the Philips label. Even if they don't know they have it, most people have at least a surface familiarity with the glorious melodic sense of Tchaikovsky. But to hear the lighter magical fairy-tale Swan Lake/Nutcracker side of the composer expressed in operatic form (as in "Iolanta") is to truly hear those elements come to life. Conversely, those familiar with the dark tragic pathos of his later symphonies will hear that aesthetic assume a terrifying reality in "Mazeppa".

In my opinion, no major composer has had their operas as shamefully ignored as Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He composed 15 operas, five of which have been recorded by Gergiev. Rimsky-Korsakov was undeniably one of the greatest orchestrators of all time. His facility at orchestration was carried into the 20th century by his star pupil, Igor Stravinsky. Those enchanted by the exotic orchestral colorings of Stravinsky's "Firebird", "Petrushka" and "The Song of the Nightingale" will find their source in Rimsky's operas "The Invisible City of Kitezh" and "Kashchey the Immortal". 

Sergei Prokofiev wrote eight operas, six of which have been recorded by Gergiev. His aria shunning through composed articulation of a continuous musical line was (to the degree that he pursued it) groundbreaking. The madcap and bizarre proto-psychedelic libretto of "Love for Three Oranges", which Prokofiev wrote himself, is not only a peek into his penchant for parody, but a glimpse into the depth of his imagination. "The Gambler" is a complex psychological web, tragic in a farcical way (ala Berg's "Lulu"). "The Fiery Angel" was Prokofiev's bid to compete with Stravinsky for leader of the Parisian avant-garde of the 1920s and, as such, outdoes Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" for pagan abandon and demonic ferocity. 1944s "War and Peace" is every bit the epic that one would expect from such an undertaking.

My favorite Prokofiev opera, though, is his comedy "Betrothal in a Monastery". It is opera buffa in the grand tradition, and coming unexpectedly in the dark year of 1940, perhaps the last of its kind to be written by a major composer (imagine a Russian "Der Rosenkavalier"). The Gergiev recording features Anna Netrebko herself, captured in her radiant youth.

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