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ID: MELCD1002129
CDs: 2
Type: CD
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Collection:
Opera Collection
Subcollection: Choir and OrchestraSoloists: Georgy Nelepp (Vakula), Elizaveta Antonova (Solokha), Andrei Ivanov (Devil), Maxim Mikhailov (Chub), Elena Kruglikova (Oksana), Sergei Krasovsky (Pan Golova), Fyodor Godovkin (Panas), Alexandr Peregudov (Schoolmaster), Olga Insarova (Tsarina), Alexei Ivanov (His Highness), I Ionov (Master of Ceremonies), Veniamin Shevtsov (Attendant), Ivan Sipayev ( Old Cossack), Mikhail Skazin (Wood Goblin)
Bolshoi Theatre Choir and Orchestra, Alexander Melik-Pashayev
Firma Melodiya presents a recording of a wonderful but now so rarely performed lyric and comic opera - Tchaikovsky’s Cherevichki.
The opera was initially named 'Vakula the Smith'. In 1874, Tchaikovsky won a competition announced by the Russian Music Society for the best opera to a libretto by Yakov Polonsky based on the famous story 'Christmas Eve' by Nikolai Gogol from his collection 'Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka'. However, Tchaikovsky was left displeased with his piece and reworked it in 1887. The opera was then staged at the Bolshoi Theatre, and the first night of Cherevichki became Tchaikovsky’s debut as a conductor.
Gogol was one of Tchaikovsky’s favourite authors. The composer liked to stay in the Ukraine, in his sister’s manor Kamenka. Tchaikovsky brought to life the characters from Gogol’s story, their lives, legends and emotions, with the help of folk tunes, dance rhythms and expressive lyric intonations. The opera also has a gallant intermezzo - the scene at St Petersburg court in the 18th century which also attracted the composer in a later opera, 'The Queen of Spades'.
This recording of Cherevichki was realized in the late 1940s by the Bolshoi troupe led by the outstanding conductor Alexander Melik-Pashayev and featured some of the best performers of the Bolshoi of the time, such as Elena Kruglikova, Elizaveta Antonova, Georgy Nelepp, Andrei Ivanov, Maxim Mikhailov and others. |
| 29.00 eur Buy |
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ID: MELCD1002299
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Vocal and Opera Collection
Subcollection: Voices and OrchestraFirma Melodiya presents a jubilee release of one of the most distinguished singers of modern times - Elena Obraztsova.
Obraztsova has sung at the world’s best opera and concert houses. Her operatic heroines are known and loved by millions of listeners on different continents. She has worked with the greatest opera directors, conductors and soloists. However, the singer still considers the Bolshoi Theatre her principal operatic home, where she debuted as Marina Mniszech in Boris Godunov more than fifty years ago.
That was the time of the Bolshoi’s golden cohort, when Obraztsova’s voice and dramatic gift shone among the other outstanding representatives of Soviet music art. That was an era of the Bolshoi’s first international triumphs when the young singer, along with the other new soloists of the troupe, was receiving rousing welcomes during the tours of Italy and the United States. That was an era when the perennial traditions existed in harmony with the spirit of newness introduced by the younger artists and the experience shared with foreign peers.
The release features fragments of Russian and foreign operas which make up just a portion of Elena Obraztsova’s extensive repertoire. Still, they largely convey the main features of her performing individuality, her mastery of musical dramatic transformation making us recognize the singer’s voice on recordings from different years.
The music by Donizetti, Verdi, Saint-Saens, Bizet, Massenet, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky is performed to the accompaniment of the USSR Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by the outstanding maestros Boris Khaikin, Odyssey Dimitriadi, Algis Žiūraitis and Mark Ermler.
Bizet -L'amour est un oiseau rebelle 'Habanera' (from Carmen)
Donizetti -O mio Fernando (from La Favorita)
Massenet - Va! Laisse couler mes larmes (from Werther)
Mussorgsky - Marfa's Prophecy (from Khovanshchina) / Skushno Marina! (from Boris Godunov)
Rimsky Korsakov - Kashcheevna's Scene (from Kashchey the Immortal)
Lioubasha's aria (from The Tsar's Bride)
Lel's Third Song (from The Snow Maiden)
All night I have waited for him in vain (from Sadko)
Saint-Saëns - Amour, viens aider ma faiblesse (Samson et Dalila)
Tchaikovsky - Da, chas nastal! (from Joan of Arc)
Podrugi milyye (from The Queen of Spades)
Countess's Scene (from Pique Dame)
Verdi - O don fatale (from Don Carlo)
Stride la vampa (from Il Trovatore) |
| 16.00 eur Temporarily out of stock |
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ID: MELCD1002359
CDs: 2
Type: CD
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Collection:
Opera Collection
Subcollection: OpéraOpera in three acts - Libretto by Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa
One of the most popular operas of the world repertoire, Tosca was finished in the last year of the 19th century. It was based on the French playwright Victorien Sardou’s drama written for Sarah Bernhardt. The premiere of the opera that took place in 1900 in Rome was not accepted with much enthusiasm, and only the performance at La Scala under Arturo Toscanini became a true triumph. The story of singer Floria Tosca and her beloved painter Mario Cavaradossi who fell victim to bloody despot Baron Scarpia on the background of the revolutionary events in Italy of the early 19th century is still able to move to the innermost of one’s heart as the heat of dramatic fervour is masterfully captured in the music. Numerous audio and video recordings of the opera featuring the world’s best singers and conductors were made in the previous century.
This recording was realized by the USSR Bolshoi Theatre in 1974. The celebrated internationally recognized soloists of the opera company of the 1970s Tamara Milashkina, Vladimir Atlantov, Yuri Mazurok and others perform the opera in the original language under the prominent conductor Mark Ermler.
Characters and performers:
Floria Tosca, a celebrated singer -Tamara Milashkina, soprano
Mario Cavaradossi, a painter -Vladimir Atlantov, tenor
Baron Scarpia, chief of police -Yuri Mazurok, baritone
Cesare Angelotti, former Consul of the Roman Republic - Valeri Yaroslavtsev, bass
Sacristan - Vitali Nartov, baritone
Spoletta, a police agent - Andrei Sokolov, tenor
Sciarrone, another agent - Vladimir Filippov, bass
A Jailer - Мikhail Shkaptsov, bass
A Shepherd boy - Alexander Pavlov, alto
Cardinal, scribe, soldiers, police agents, altar boys, noblemen and women, townsfolk, artisans
Choir and orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre - Conductor - Mark Ermler
Recorded in 1974. |
| 29.00 eur Temporarily out of stock |
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ID: MKM295
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection:
Ballet Music
Subcollection: OrchestreRecorded 1966 |
| 15.00 eur Temporarily out of stock |
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ID: PTC5186089
CDs: 1
Type: SACD
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Subcollection: OpéraMultichannel Hybrid SACD - DSD
Highlights of the Russian opera
During the eighteenth century, especially at the time of Catherine the Great, Russia enjoyed a lively opera life; however, it was not until the nineteenth century that the national Russian opera was created. Musical life at the court of the Czar was predominantly oriented towards the West and attracted, for example, many Italian composers to St. Petersburg. The works they wrote there were also mostly based on Italian libretti, and if a Russian opera was ever performed, it followed on musically in the tradition of the operas that could be heard in Naples, Milan or Vienna.
A slow change came about in this situation during the first half of the nineteenth century, after Russia also began to be influenced by the sense of nationhood which was spreading through great parts of Europe in that period. Furthermore, this was the time during which the well-to-do middle class began to participate increasingly in the cultural life, and therefore, it is not just a coincidence that the birth of the national Russian opera more or less concurred with the opening of the ‘Great’ or ‘Bolshoi’ Theatre in Moscow in 1825. |
| 21.00 eur Buy |
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ID: PTC5186090
CDs: 1
Type: SACD
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Subcollection: OpéraMultichannel Hybrid SACD - DSD |
| 21.00 eur Buy |
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