Organization

Singer

Soprano

Elena Zelenskaya

Domna Ivanovna Saburova

Contralto

Anna Bondarevskaya

Dunyasha

Baritone

Elchin Azizov

Grigory Gryaznoy

Bass

Nikolay Kazansky

Malyuta Skuratov

Tenor

Bekhzod Davronov

Boyar Ivan Sergeyevich Likov

Mezzo-soprano

Agunda Kulaeva

Lyubasha

Anna Matsey

Petrovna

Stage director

Julia Pevzner

Conductor

Alexey Bogorad

Lighting designer

Damir Ismagilov

Costume designer

Elena Zaitseva

Set designer

Alyona Pikalova

Choreographer

Ekaterina Mironova

Chorus master

Valery Borisov

Ilya Selivanov

Viateslav Pochapsky

Vasily Stepanovich Sobakin

Olga Seliverstova

Marfa

Roman Muravitsky

Yelisey Bomeliy

Gennady Rozhdestvensky

Bolshoi Theatre

Russian

Tsarskaya Nevesta -  (The Tsar's Bride)

Moscow

Russia

Historic Stage

Tsarskaya Nevesta Rimsky-Korsakov

Public

The Tsar's Bride

Approved

In the summer of 1898, when work on the composition was in full swing, it was decided that the premiere would take place at Mamontov's Moscow Private Opera. The composer wrote the part of Marfa based on the voice of Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, who sang with Mamontov. The premiere took place on October 22, 1899. The production, designed by Mikhail Vrubel, was staged by one of the founders of domestic opera direction, Vasily Shkaber, who later held the post of chief director of the Bolshoi Theater.

The Tsar's Bride is the ninth opera by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov and his third appeal to the historical dramaturgy of Lev Mey. The composer's operatic debut was The Woman of Pskov, and a year before The Tsar's Bride, the one-act opera The Boyar Vera Sheloga was created. Mey's plays, long gone from the dramatic stage, have been preserved in history thanks to the brilliant musical embodiment in Rimsky-Korsakov's operas.

Contrary to the theoretical guidelines prevailing in the second half of the 19th century, which required the replacement of classical operatic forms with recitative, Rimsky-Korsakov creates The Tsar's Bride in line with tradition. “The style of the opera was supposed to be melodious for the most part; arias and monologues were supposed to be developed as far as dramatic situations allowed; voice ensembles were meant to be real, complete, and not in the form of random and fleeting hooks of one voice for another, as suggested by the modern requirements of supposedly dramatic truth, ”the composer formulated his idea. The opera is really distinguished by the careful finishing of the musical material - and at the same time is full of lively emotions.

Having composed a series of operas based on fairy-tale plots (May Night, The Snow Maiden, Mlada, The Night Before Christmas, Sadko), Rimsky-Korsakov again plunges into the era of Ivan the Terrible. The plot of May's drama "The Tsar's Bride" and the opera written on its basis is based on the true fate of the third wife of Tsar Ivan Marfa Sobakina, who died two weeks after the wedding. However, the opera does not claim to be historically accurate. The playwright, and after him the composer, draw bright characters in the most dramatic circumstances, giving their own motivations for the actions of the main characters based on the logic of the development of the intrigue.

The Tsar's Bride was first staged at the Bolshoi Theater in 1916. Martha was sung at the premiere by Antonina Nezhdanova, who soon got a worthy partner: in the same year, Nadezhda Obukhova made her debut as Lyubasha. And in the future, the best forces of the Bolshoi and promising debutants were always employed in this opera. The 1927 premiere was conducted by Nikolai Golovanov. In 1944, Boris Pokrovsky staged the opera, and this was his first significant work on the main stage of the country. In 1955, in the second year of his service at the Bolshoi Theatre, the twenty-seven-year-old Yevgeny Svetlanov staged this opera as musical director. This performance was the last work of the outstanding theater designer Fyodor Fyodorovsky. It is his monumental historical decorations, which have become classics of the "grand style",

English

The Tsar's Bride by Rimsky-Korsakov, From (2021/2022), Directed by Julia Pevzner,, Conductor Alexey Bogorad, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, Russia

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues