The 20th century, one of the most tragic and
controversial periods in Russian history, is now drawing to a close. Despite
the wars, revolutions and economic downfalls, however, Russia maintained
its lofty cultural traditions spawning a constellation of great artists
and musicians whose work has had such a big influence on the world culture
everywhere.
In this series we'll try to recreate the musical highlights of this
outgoing century. The year was 1902...
...The month of February was halfway through in Moscow and the
air was filled with the warm fragrance of the coming spring. One of those
sunny days Sergei Rakhmaninoff set about to write The Spring cantata to
the lyrics by the prominent 19th century Russian poet Nikolai Nekrasov.
Rakhmaninoff, then a young man in love, was really inspired by a sweet
anticipation of his upcoming marriage to his cousin Natalya Satina.
In less then a month the work was done and, on March 11th 1902,
The Spring premiered in Moscow.
The premiere was a resounding success with even the strictest
critics admiring the fresh beauty of Rakhmaninoff's new work. Shortly after
The Spring cantata came out, the turn-of -the-century's foremost Russian
composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov weighed in with the Autumn Tale opera,
his eleventh and musically very different from Rakhmaninoff's composition.
The new opera was set in the murky kingdom of Kashchey the Immortal,
an evil being in Russian folklore. Back in those days life in Russia had
ground to a complete standstill and the intellectuals, who had yet to taste
the bloody carnage of the revolution, were looking forward to an upheaval
in the hope it would bring them much-awaited freedom from oppression. In
the finale, when Kashchey's kingdom is falling apart, the Knight-Tempest
greets the freed captives with the words: "Freedom, freedom! The storm
has thrown the gates wide open for you!"
Rimsky-Korsakov provided his unusually political fairy-tale opera
with an equally unorthodox music. The unheard-of-before chords raised many
eyebrows among his seasoned colleagues and even the young musicians were
suspicious of the thorny language spoken by the new opera. The opera lovers,
however, enthusiastically welcomed Rimsky-Korsakov's new work.
Instead of taking his new opera to the Imperial Theater, Rimsky-Korsakov
offered it to the Private Opera Society whose Moscow branch gave its first
performance of Kashchey the Immortal on December 12th, 1902.
The composer, almost convinced by his friends that, technically,
the opera was nearly-impossible to play, was surprised to see the audience
applauding like crazy and, getting back home he made the following entry
in his diary:
"I don't think the people know what they are so happy about.
Flowers and curtain calls don't mean a thing, especially in Moscow where
I am surprisingly so popular." Kashchey the Immortal was a huge success
early in this century and, up until the 1917 revolution, it was extensively
performed in Moscow, St.Petersburg and elsewhere in Russia. After the revolution,
the totalitarian Soviet authorities were trying hard to forget the opera
apparently fearing unnecessary comparisons that might emerge in the minds
of the people watching the dismal kingdom of the operatic tyrant...
...On April 26th Antonina Nezhdanova, then a student at the Moscow
Conservatory, was being auditioned at the Bolshoi Theater. She sang an
aria and felt the examiners liked what they heard. The following day she
was invited to meet the director of the Imperial Theaters and offered a
debut at the Mariinsky Theater in St.Petersburg. For an aspiring singer
like Nezhdanova, the invitation to debut at the country's number one stage
was a lucky strike, but she refused to go saying she had to finish her
studies in Moscow. There were no vacancies in Moscow, however, and so she
had to leave empty-handed. Less than two months later, Nezhdanova was contacted
and asked to stand in for one of the Bolshoi's singers who had suddenly
fallen ill.
In April 23rd of 1902 a surprisingly calm Antonina Nezhdanova
walked out on stage at the Bolshoi Theater for the first time in her life.
"I was trying hard to make sure no one saw how terribly scared I was,"
she later reminisced. "I started off rather timidly, then, feeling
I was going to make it, I relaxed and went on singing freely and with ease.
When I was finished, people started applauding... The conductor even had
to pause which was something they never did and I realized I had made it..."
A few days later Nezhdanova was invited to sign a one-year contract
with the Bolshoi. She was so happy that she didn't even ask about the money
they were going to pay her, which was a way less than what they usually
offered to first-tier lead singers. What she really cared about was the
very fact she was taken on board...
"I'm singing with the Bolshoi, the best theater in the whole
world!" enthused Antonina Nezhdanova who was destined to become the
pride and glory of the Russian opera... Later that same year Nezhdanova
graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with a gold medal, the first ever
female vocalist to have received such a distinction. Her name was emblazoned
in gold letters on a marble plaque which still gracing the Conservatory
foyer.
In 1902 they opened in St.Petersburg the Royal Court Orchestra
museum offering a wide display of musical instruments, including rare ones.
The museum was later expanded and is now called the State Collection of
Musical Instruments. Orchestra musicians established their mutual assistance
union at a ceremony held at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
The Union protected the musicians against entrepreneurial arbitrariness
and was giving help to sick and unemployed musicians.
A musical and ethnographic commission was set up at the Moscow
University to study the Russian folklore. The commission planned expeditions
to various parts of the country to record folk songs, fairy-tales and legends
a publication of a magazine all its own.
Also in 1902, the Perm Opera Theater, then one of the country's
best such companies, gave a record 116 performances in a single year, of
which 5 were available at discount prices. Four new operas were also staged
that year. In 1902 they opened Russia's first record factory in collaboration
with Britain's Grammophone public limited company. The popular Russian
folk song Dark Is the Night performed by the great bass singer Fyodor Chaliapin
was one of the first records made by the new company.
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF
THE 20TH CENTURY SERIES is written by Olga Fyodorova.
