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Rimsky-Korsakov: The Maid of Pskov / Gergiev, Kirov Opera


Release Date: 07/15/1997 
Label:  Philips   Catalog #: 446678   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Performer:  Genadij Bezzubenkov,  Nikolai Gassiev,  Evgeny Fedotov,  Yuri Laptev,   ... 
Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Kirov Theater Orchestra,  Kirov Theater Chorus
Number of Discs: 2 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 2 Hours 4 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

A solid reading of Rimsky-Korsakov’s remarkable and dramatically astute first opera.

The received view of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas is that they are essentially for Russian consumption only, placed beyond the scope of a wider audience by complex questions of language, legend and arcane tradition. However, [this recording] underline[s] the fact that, on a musical level and in terms of dramatic impact, Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas reach beyond national boundaries, whether performed in Russian (as here) or not. On a purely geographical point, there is no reason why we should need a detailed knowledge of north-western Russia simply because the maid happens to come from Pskov, any more than we need a gazetteer of Spain to prepare Read more for Il barbiere di Siviglia or, indeed, one of Merseyside for Emilia di Liverpool.

The themes on which Rimsky-Korsakov touches in his stage works – love, loyalty, remorse, death and so on – are scarcely peculiar to Russia, but his art was to place them musically in an unmistakably Russian context and to create in his operas a rich tapestry of national colouring. That he devised diverse ways of doing so is demonstrated in these four scores spanning, as chance would have it, almost the whole of his creative life. The Maid of Pskov, Rimsky’s remarkable and dramatically astute first opera, has points of contact with Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. This is no mere accident, for both composers, sharing common creative ideals, were writing their operas at the same time, in the same flat and at the same desk. Both operas have a vivid backdrop of Russian history; each centres on a Russian Tsar, Boris in the Mussorgsky, Ivan the Terrible in the Rimsky. Neither Boris Godunov nor Ivan the Terrible had an exactly unblemished record in human rights, but both operas incorporate revelatory passages of soul-searching, which hint at a more humane side to their characters and at the same time establish in the operas’ developing plots a crucial moment of reflection.

In The Maid of Pskov, Ivan, although his first appearance in Act II triggers understandable apprehension, is dissuaded from ravaging rebellious Pskov when he realises that Princess Olga (the maid of the title and ward of the ruling Prince Yuri Tokmakov) is his own daughter from an earlier dalliance with one Vera Sheloga. At this juncture, The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga comes into play. Ever the self-critic, Rimsky-Korsakov made no fewer than three versions of The Maid of Pskov. The second one is preceded by a prologue, explaining how Olga came to be born. In the definitive, third edition (recorded here) Rimsky lets the information slip in gossip and overheard conversation: this is a much more subtle manoeuvre, posing, from the point of view of comprehension, no more problems than we have, say, in Il trovatore. The explanatory prologue was shorn off and made into the separate one-acter The Noblewoman Vera Sheloga. Rimsky-Korsakov, like Mussorgsky in Boris Godunov, aimed to reflect in the music of The Maid of Pskov the natural contours and inflections of speech, its varieties of pace and, in a notable example in Act I, the cross-cutting and confusion of argument. Performance: 5 (out of 5)

-- BBC Music Magazine
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Works on This Recording

1. Maid of Pskov "Ivan the Terrible" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Performer:  Genadij Bezzubenkov (Bass), Nikolai Gassiev (Tenor), Evgeny Fedotov (Bass),
Yuri Laptev (Tenor), Evgenia Perlasova (Mezzo Soprano), Vladimir Galusin (Tenor),
Ludmilla Filatova (Mezzo Soprano), Galina Gorchakova (Soprano), Georgi Zastavnij (Baritone),
Vladimir Ognovenko (Bass), Olga Korzhenskaya (Mezzo Soprano)
Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Kirov Theater Orchestra,  Kirov Theater Chorus
Period: Romantic 
Written: 1868/1892; Russia 
 Venue:  Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg 
Language: Russian 

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