The Russian composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is justly renowned as one of music's supreme masters of orchestration due to his magnificent masterpieces Scheherazade, Russian Easter Overture, and Capriccio Espagnol. Less well-known and certainly due for more recognition, are the fairy-tale operas he composed which he himself regarded as his major musical legacy. It's telling that insofar as these works are known at all in the Western world, they are known mainly from the vivid orchestral showpieces peppered throughout the scores. Indeed, Neeme Jarvi many years ago made a splendid multi-CD set of orchestral suites from the operas with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on Chandos records, a set which is still available in re-release.
Even from that point of view, the particular opera I was listening to yesterday doesn't register on the map and few North Americans have even heard of it. This is The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya. While this work still sees performance inside Russia, it has remained very rare in the rest of the world. It's a pity, because Rimsky-Korsakov himself regarded it as his supreme artistic achievement. Indeed, it is sometimes described as the "Russian Parsifal", more perhaps because of the thematic content than out of any real musical similarity.
Listening to The Invisible City of Kitezh, you have to be prepared to make allowances for sound. There are only 4 recordings ever made, as far as I know, and the 2 currently available were both taped during live performances. Inevitably, you have to cope with stage noises, odd balances, and voices that seem to recede into the background as their owners move upstage. It's a small price to pay for the privilege of becoming familiar with such fine music.
The lengthy title shows that the libretto is actually a conflation of two different legends, and this conflation was apparently planned right from the outset of discussions between composer and librettist. The two stories are well integrated in the libretto, and the combination certainly allows for an eventful story.
In the opera, Fevroniya is depicted as a pure maiden, most at home in the world of nature. The score opens with her radiant hymn to nature, featuring a soaring refrain for the principal soprano that becomes a motif for the innocence and purity of Fevroniya throughout the opera. In that first scene she meets the Prince Vsevolod who falls in love with her. They sing a beautiful love duet, and he places a ring on her finger. In Act 2 their marriage scene, at first joyful, is interrupted by news of the invaders coming to threaten their homeland.
The most striking parts of the score, musically, are the scenes involving the invading horde of Tatars who surround and threaten the city of Greater Kitezh. The contrast to the beauty of the opening scenes is reminiscent of the similar contrasts in Borodin's Prince Igor, but with the harsh brutality of the invaders even more sharply differentiated from the civilized tones of the city.
Stricken by the death in battle of Vsevolod, Fevroniya prays for the city to be hidden from the invaders and a golden mist rises from the lake, concealing the city but still allowing the sound of its bells to be heard. As the sun rises, the mist conceals the city but a striking orchestral passage depicts how its reflection can be seen in the waters, and how the Tatars flee in terror.
In the achingly beautiful final act, Fevroniya meets the bird of paradise who tells her that she must die, but will then receive the reward of her goodness. An entr'acte leads us into the "heaven" which Greater Kitezh has now become, and there Fevroniya is reunited and wed with Vsevolod to the acclaim of the people.
In this large-scale work in 4 acts, Rimsky-Korsakov not only revealed his undoubted talent as an orchestrator, but also showed his supreme skill at setting words to music. Most impressive is the way he can continue to vary orchestration in his usual fluent way without ever swamping the singers in a tidal wave of sound. The melodies throughout are memorable, with Fevroniya's hymn remaining lodged in my mind long after I have heard it. Also unforgettable is the battle scene, and the interlude leading to the finale.
The recording I have is a live performance on 3 Philips CDs from the Kirov Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1994, under the direction of the pre-eminent Russian conductor Valery Gergiev. None of the singers are well-known in North America, but all are thoroughly intimate with the style of the piece, and sing with fervour and passion. The Kirov orchestra is equally splendid in supporting the singers and in the orchestral showpieces and interludes. The sound is rather dry, and (as I said earlier) stage noises are occasionally intrusive, but on the whole this is certainly a great performance caught on the wing, and the rapturous applause at the end of each act shows that the audience were thoroughly captivated by the spell of the music. There is also a more recent live recording available on Naxos, which I have not heard, but which has the undoubted virtue of a lower price. Given the overall excellence of recent Naxos issues, I'm sure it would make a worthwhile alternative.
In my opinion, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya is a major masterpiece and is long overdue for wider familiarity and recognition.
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