Russians are operas written by Russian composers in any language. There are examples of works by the Russian musical theater in German, Italian, French and other languages. Russian opera, along with German, French and Italian, has global significance.
Instruction manual
1
The first Italian operas performed by Italian troupes appeared in Russia in the 18th century. Later, some foreign composers who lived at the Russian imperial court began to write operas in Russian, and Russian authors in Italian.
2
The first attempts by Russian composers to compose operas with a libretto in Russian were made in the early 1770s. The created works were not examples of Russian national opera, but a weak imitation of German, French and Italian models. However, these operas paved the way for the great works of the 19th and 20th centuries.
3
At the first stage of the development of Russian opera, several remarkable works were created. Among them are: “Avaricious” by Vasily Pashkevich, “Orpheus and Eurydice” by Evstigney Fomin and “Anyuta” by an unknown composer.
4
The golden period of Russian opera was the 19th century. It began with the success of the musical work Lesta, the Dnepropetrovsk Mermaid. His libretto and musical base were partially borrowed from the German composer Ferdinand Cauer. Then a successful patriotic opera was created on the basis of Russian history - "Ivan Susanin", the author of which was Italian Katerino Kavos. Over the following years, several more successful examples of Russian musical theater appeared.
5
Two great works by Mikhail Glinka, Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila, opened a new era in Russian opera. It is Mikhail Glinka who is considered the founder of the Russian national opera as such. After the appearance of Glinka's works, opera became one of the leading genres in Russian music. Glinka’s follower was Alexander Dargomyzhsky, the author of The Mermaid and Stone Gosy. Significant works were created by Anton Rubinstein, Anton Arensky, Sergey Taneyev and other composers.
6
The highest point of development of the Russian opera reached in the works of Modest Mussorgsky and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Mussorgsky's “Boris Godunov” became the greatest masterpiece of the Russian musical theater. Mussorgsky's other operas remained unfinished. Among them: “Salambo”, “Marriage”, “Khovanshchina” and “Sorochinskaya fair”. Pyotr Tchaikovsky created ten operas, the most famous of which are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades. They are included in the repertoire of all the leading musical theaters in the world. An important place in Russian opera of the XX century is occupied by "Prince Igor" by Alexander Borodin
7
At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the main composer of operas in Russia was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He created fifteen works, the most notable of which were Snegurochka, Tsar’s Bride, Kashchei the Immortal and The Golden Cockerel.
8
At the beginning of the 20th century, several significant works were created by Igor Stravinsky. His work cannot be attributed to the opera in its purest form; rather, it is opera-ballets or musical dramas. The best examples of Stravinsky’s creative heritage are The Nightingale, Oedipus the King, and the Flood.
9
In Soviet times, outstanding operas were created by the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich. His works have been repeatedly criticized by officials. Attacks on Shostakovich and another brilliant composer Prokofiev sometimes took the form of real persecution.
10
Russian musical theater continues its development in the 21st century. The premieres of two comic operas took place: Tsar Demyan, a collective project, and The Children of Rosenthal by Leonid Desyatnikov. These scandalous works received great success with the audience.
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