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Osip Petrov, Anna Petrova-Vorobyova and the Development of Low-Voiced Character Types in Nineteenth-Century Russian Opera
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 June 2016
Abstract
This article delves into the lives and careers of two significant Russian singers: the bass Osip Petrov and his wife, the mezzo-soprano Anna Vorobyova, who created or inspired leading roles in operas by Glinka, Dargomïzhsky and Musorgsky. Over the course of a career that spanned some four decades, Petrov would become the most celebrated Russian bass of the nineteenth century; Vorobyova, whose career was cut short by a tragic accident, would turn her attention to the private sphere and incubate a younger generation of musicians. Drawing on reviews, memoirs and personal correspondence, I chart the influence of this couple not only on individual composers and operas, but also on the development of stock characters such as the father, the buffoon, the antihero and the trouser role.
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Footnotes
State University of New York at Oswego; [email protected]
References
1 Nineteenth-century Italian commentators frequently invoke these conventions, especially in order to criticise operas that departed from them. See, for example, Abramo Basevi’s critique of Verdi’s Stiffelio: ‘A bass voice would seem more proper to the role of a priest [Stiffelio] and a tenor voice to that of a lover [Raffaele]. The distribution of voices certainly makes no little difference to the success of an opera. Each voice type is appropriate to a specific emotion: not all emotions are suitably expressed with sounds of the same pitch range, or of the same power, speed, or lightness; similarly, not all voice types – differing among themselves in pitch, power, lightness and so forth – are equally suitable to characters that, because of the nature of their roles, must be dominated by one kind of affection or passion rather than another.’ Basevi, Abramo, The Operas of Verdi (orig. pub. 1859), trans. Edward Schneider and Stefano Castelvecchi, ed. Castelvecchi (Chicago, 2013), 150Google Scholar.
2 These operas include A Life for the Tsar, Ruslan and Lyudmila, Rusalka, Judith, The Stone Guest, The Maid of Pskov, Boris Godunov, The Demon and Vakula the Smith.
3 ‘дедушк[a] русской оперы’, ‘титан, вынесший на своих гомерических плечах почти все, что создано в драматической музыке’. L’vov, Mikhail, Osip Afanas’evich Petrov (Moscow and Leningrad, 1946), 35Google Scholar, 29. All Russian terms, titles, and quotations are rendered here in Cyrillic. However, for the convenience of non-Russian-speaking scholars, the bibliographic information in the footnotes has been transliterated into the Roman alphabet.
4 See, among others, Poriss, Hilary, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (New York, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cowgill, Poriss and , Rachel, ed., The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century (New York, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smart, Mary Ann, Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera (Berkeley, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rutherford, Susan, The Prima Donna and Opera 1815–1930 (Cambridge, 2006)Google Scholar; and Henson, Karen, Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 2015)Google Scholar.
5 ‘человек редких моральных качеств’, ‘великого сына русского народа’. L’vov, Petrov, 35.
6 Little is known of Osip Petrov’s father, Afanasii. Yastrebov, the most authoritative source on the singer’s childhood, considers the possibility that Osip was illegitimate (which would seem plausible in view of the fact that he was given his mother’s maiden name as a surname), but cites church records which indicate that Osip’s parents were married, however briefly. These records later refer to Petrova as a widow at the time of the christening. See Yastrebov, V., ‘Osip Afanas’evich Petrov: gody ego detstva i yunosti, 1805-1838’ [‘Osip Afanas’evich Petrov: Years of Childhood and Youth’], Russkaya starina [Old Times in Russia] 36 (1882), 366–368Google Scholar. Stasov also states that Afanasii died soon after his son’s birth: Stasov, V. V., ‘Osip Afanas’yevich Petrov’ (orig. pub. in Russkie sovremennye deyateli [Contemporary Russian Achievers] (St Petersburg, 1877), 2: 79–92Google Scholar), in Izbrannye sochineniya: zhivopis’, skul’ptura, muzyka [Collected Writings: Painting, Sculpture, Music] (Moscow, 1952), 1: 282–6.
7 This is claimed by L’vov, though not confirmed by Yastrebov.
8 ‘[П]альцы у него бегали по струнам, как живые’. Yastrebov, ‘Petrov’, 373.
9 Yastrebov, ‘Petrov’, 373-4.
10 Little is known of Zhurakhovsky, but for more information see Stites, Richard, Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The Pleasure and the Power (New Haven, 2006), 255Google Scholar.
11 ‘Это было так неожиданно, что я подумал, не шутит ли он со мной.’ Osip Petrov, ‘Iz neizdannoi avtobiografii O. A. Petrova’ [‘From the Unpublished Autobiography of O. A. Petrov’], Novoye vremya [The New Times] (24 February 1903), 2.
12 ‘гениальным русским самородком’. L’vov, Petrov, 11.
13 It was customary for Russian singers to sing foreign operas in Russian translation. These ‘Russian-stage’ productions provided a more accessible and less prestigious alternative to the Italian troupes.
14 Petrov, ‘Iz neizdannoi avtobiografii’, 2.
15 A reviewer wrote that ‘His bass voice is quite pleasant, but very little trained, as we could tell from his harsh transition to the high notes. However, we noticed Petrov’s good diction. In his gestures, he even used both hands, whereas Mr Shuvalov almost always gestures with his right hand.’ See the review in Severnaya pchela [The Northern Bee] (21 October 1830), quoted in Stasov, Izbrannye sochineniya, 283.
16 Pruzhansky, A. M., ‘Petrov, Osip Afanas’evich’, in Otechestvennye pevtsy 1750–1917: Slovar’ [Singers of the Fatherland 1750–1917: Encyclopedia] (Moscow, 1991), 1: 396Google Scholar.
17 For more on this foundational opera and its influence on Glinka, see Giust, Anna, ‘Ivan Susanin’ di Catterino Cavos: Un’opera russo prima dell’Opera russa (Torino, 2011)Google Scholar.
18 Petrov, ‘Iz neizdannoi avtobiografii’, 2.
19 ‘Помните ли вы Петрова в “Роберт-Дьяволе”? И как не помнить! Я видел его в этой роли только раз, и до сих пор, когда думаю о нем, меня преследует звуки, будто отзывы из ада: “Да, покровитель.” И этот взгляд, от обаяния которого душа ваша не имеет силы освободиться, и это шафранное лицо, исковерканное беснованием страстей. И этот лес волос, из которого, кажется, выползти готово целое гнездо змей.’ Lazhechnikov, Ivan, Basurman [The Infidel] (orig. pub. 1838) (Moscow, 1989), 63–64Google Scholar.
20 ‘Полюбуйтесь, с какой душой выполняет Петров свое ариозо в первом акте, в сцене с Робертом. Доброе чувство отеческой любви разноречит с характером адского выходца, поэтому придать естественность этому сердечному излиянию, не выходя из роли, – дело трудное. Петров здесь и во всей роли вполне победил это затруднение.’ Serov, ‘“Robert” (v pervy raz po vozobnovlenii v benefis g. Petrov 30 oktyabrya v Teatre-tsirke’ [‘Robert at the first performance of the revival at Petrov’s benefit on 30 October at the Theatre-Circus’] (first published 1857), in Kriticheskie stat’i [Critical Articles] (St Petersburg, 1892), 2: 813.
21 See Benedetti, Jean, Stanislavski: His Life and Art (London, 1988)Google Scholar.
22 For a critical and revisionist look at the construction of Russian and Soviet musical nationalism, see Frolova-Walker, Marina, Russian Music and Nationalism from Glinka to Stalin (New Haven, 2007)Google Scholar.
23 See Stites, Serfdom, Society and the Arts, 76; Dunlop, Carolyn C., The Russian Court Chapel Choir: 1796–1917 (Amsterdam, 2000), 93Google Scholar; and Ritzarev, Marina, Eighteenth-Century Russian Music (Aldershot, 2006), 258Google Scholar, 264.
24 See Stasov, Vladimir, ‘Eshche neskol’ko slova po povodu A. Ya. Petrovoi-Vorobyovoi’ [‘A Few More Words about Petrova-Vorobyova’], Novosti i birzhevaya gazeta [News and Stock-Exchange Gazette] (16 April 1901), 2Google Scholar. See also Pruzhansky, A. M., ‘Petrova-Vorobyova, Anna Yakovlevna’, Otechestvennye pevtsy, 1: 397–398Google Scholar. Tancredi had already premiered in Moscow before Vorobyova sang the role in St Petersburg; this does not change the fact, however, that she was one of the first mezzos to make the work accessible to a larger Russian audience.
25 For an analysis of the ways in which Italian operatic motifs permeated Russian literature from the mid-nineteenth century on, see Buckler, Julie, The Literary Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Imperial Russia (Stanford, 2000)Google Scholar.
26 For more on opera of this period, see Ritzarev, Eighteenth-Century Russian Music, and Naroditskaya, Inna, Bewitching Russian Opera: The Tsarina from State to Stage (New York, 2012)Google Scholar.
27 See the rhapsodic review by Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky, which includes the following passage: ‘But how to express the amazement of true music lovers, when from the very first act they became convinced that with this opera was resolved an important question for art in general and Russian art in particular, namely: the existence of a general народный music? For you, the educated enthusiast, this question was already almost decided; you believed that just as for a painter there exist particular features that delineate the character of the physiognomy of this or that people and it is possible to draw, for example, a Russian or Italian face, not working from anyone’s portrait, likewise also for the musician there exist certain types of melody and harmony that define the character of the music of this or that people, by which we distinguish German music from Italian, and even Italian from French.’ Quoted from Odoyevsky, ‘Pis’ma k lyubitelyu muzyki ob opere g. Glinki “Zhizn’ za tsarya”’ [‘Letters to the Music Lover about Glinka’s Opera A Life for the Tsar’] (orig. pub. 1836, in Severnaya pchela [The Northern Bee]), in Glinka v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov [Glinka in the Recollections of his Contemporaries], ed. A. A. Orlova (Moscow, 1955), 327. Although Glinka did not draw directly on Russian folk songs, the choral numbers reference certain folk traditions such as the девичник (a traditional wedding chorus of young women) and подголосок (a type of folk polyphony). See Warrack, John, ‘Russian Opera’, in A History of Russian Theatre, ed. Robert Leach and Victor Borovsky (Cambridge, 1999), 199–217Google Scholar.
28 See, for example, Zavlunov, Daniil, ‘M. I. Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar (1836): An Historical and Analytic-Theoretical Study’, PhD diss., Princeton (2010)Google Scholar; Helmers, Rutger, ‘It Just Reeks of Italianism: Traces of Italian Opera in A Life for the Tsar’, Music & Letters 91 (2010), 376–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and , Helmers, Not Russian Enough? Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Nineteenth-Century Russian Opera (Rochester, NY, 2014), 20–49Google Scholar. The foundational work that disputes the notion of essential Russianness is, of course, Taruskin’s, RichardDefining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton, 1997)Google Scholar.
29 See Frolova-Walker, Russian Music and Nationalism, 29–42.
30 Riasanovsky, Nicholas, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855 (Berkeley, 1959), 11Google Scholar.
31 See, for example, Auber’s La Muette de Portici and Rossini’s Guillaume Tell.
32 See Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically, 27.
33 ‘Великие русского характера берет верх над всем, любовь к царю резко обозначается, и твердая решительность, и теплая вера, и грустные, тяжелые воспоминания утраченного, соединясь, показывают в полной красоте Сусанина!’ Odoyevsky, ‘Novaya russkaya opera: “Zhizn’ za tsarya”’ [‘A new Russian opera: A Life for the Tsar’] (orig. pub. 1837, in Russki invalid [Russian Invalid]), in Glinka v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 335.
34 ‘Должно заметить, что партия Сусанина и в первых двух актах, не выходя из русского характера, имеет в себе нечто важное, резко отличающееся от заунывной мелодии Антониды и беззаботных напевов жениха […] Этот важный характер выдержан автором везде, во всех состояниях души Сусанина […] Но в 3-м действии, когда Сусанин, в минуту отдыха поляков, им заведенных в непроходимую глушь, в ожидании пытки, естественно предается мысли о своей участи; когда в нем борется чувство святого долга, любовь к царю и отчизне, и воспоминанье о дочери, сироте, о семейном счастии, – в эту минуту напев Сусанина достигает высшего трагического стиля, и – дело доныне неслыханное! – сохраняя во всей чистоте свой русский характер.’ Odoyevsky, ‘Pis’ma k lyubitelyu muzyki ob opere g. Glinki “Zhizn’ za tsarya”’, 331.
35 ‘возвысить народный напев до трагедии’. Odoyevsky, ‘Pis’ma k lyubitelyu muzyki’, 332.
36 Further examples of the sort of Italian arias marked cantabile that Glinka would have known include Ferrando’s ‘Un’aura amorosa’ from Mozart’s Così fan tutte; Amina’s ‘Come per me sereno’ and Rodolfo’s ‘Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni’ from Bellini’s La sonnambula, to name only a few.
37 Literally ‘long-drawn-out song’, a lyrical lament associated with rural Russia.
38 Montagu-Nathan, M., ‘Shaliapin’s Precursors’, Music & Letters 33 (1952), 233Google Scholar.
39 ‘Выход дедушки Петрова в Сусанине, по-моему, есть выход Сусанина (идеи) в Петрове’, quoted in L’vov, Petrov, 21.
40 ‘В роли Сусанина Петров…создал вековечный тип.’ L’vov, Petrov, 21.
41 See, for example, the numerous mentions of this term in Mikhail Ivanov’s bookends to Petrov’s memoir. Petrov, ‘Iz neizdannoi avtobiografii O. A. Petrova’, Novoye vremya (3 March 1903), 2.
42 Eggers, Susan Beam, ‘Reinventing the Enemy: The Villains of Glinka’s Opera Ivan Susanin on the Soviet Stage’, in Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda, ed. Kevin M. F. Platt and David Brandenberger (Madison, 2005), 261–275Google Scholar. See also Fryer, Paul, A Chronology of Opera Performances at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, 1860–1917 (Queenston, 2009)Google Scholar.
43 For more on the history of gender-bending and cross-dressing in Western European opera, see Freitas, Roger, ‘The Eroticism of Emasculation: Confronting the Baroque Body of the Castrato’, The Journal of Musicology 20 (2003), 196–249CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the substantial amount of scholarship on Franco-Italian trouser roles and gender ideology, such as Blackmer, Corinne E. and Smith, Patricia Juliana, En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera (New York, 1995)Google Scholar; Hadlock, Heather, ‘The Career of Cherubino, or the Trouser Role Grows Up’, in Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera, ed. Mary Ann Smart (Princeton, 2000), 67–92Google Scholar; , Hadlock, ‘Women Playing Men in Italian Opera, 1810–1835’, in Women’s Voices Across Musical Worlds, ed. Jane A. Bernstein (Boston, 2004), 285–307Google Scholar; André, Naomi, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early-Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (Bloomington, 2006)Google Scholar.
44 The Russian Opera troupe performed hardly any Russian operas, since hardly any existed at the time. Its repertoire consisted mainly of Italian opera in translation.
45 ‘Глинка обратился ко мне с следующими словами: “М-lle Воробьева, я должен вам признаться, что я враг италианской музыки; я слышу в ней на каждом шагу фальшь; и потому, по приезде в Петербург, я ни разу не был в русской опере, хотя знаю, что вы недавно поставили ‘Семирамиду’ с большим успехом. Я ото всех слышу, что у вас настоящий контральто и что у вас бездна чувства. Ввиду етого – песенку из моей оперы, которую я принес, я попрошу вас петь без всякого чувства.”
Это меня несколько изумило, и я сказала ему: “Михаил Иванович, я бы очень хотела исполнить ваше желание, но я на сцене привыкла давать себе ясный отчет, почему я пою какую-нибудь вещь так, а не иначе; и потому прошу вас объяснить мне, чем вызывается в Ване такая безучастность в этой песенке?”
Он мне на это сказал: “Я это объясню вам, Анна Яковлевна, тем, что Ваня – сиротка, живущий у Сусанина, сидит в избе один, за какою-нибудь легкою работой, и напевает про себя песенку, не придавая никакого значения словам, а обращая более внимания на свою работу.”’ From Vorobyova’s reminiscences of A Life for the Tsar, ‘K 500-mu predstavleniyu “Zhizni za tsarya”’ [‘For the 500th Performance of A Life for the Tsar’] (orig. pub. 1880, in Russkaya starina), in Glinka v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 170.
46 ‘Но что же сказать об игре г-жи Воробьевой? Трудно на чем-нибудь остановиться! С появления “Жизни за царя” она стала выше всякого суждения и по игре и по голосу. В одном только можно ее уверить, что вся публика без различия обожает милого птенчика!’ Odoyevsky, ‘Novaya russkaya opera: “Zhizn’ za tsarya”’, 335–6.
47 ‘[В]сех нас с ума сводила А. Я. Воробьева.’ Serov, Aleksandr, ‘Vospominaniya o Mikhaile Ivanoviche Glinke’ [‘Memories of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka’], in Glinka v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, 68Google Scholar.
48 ‘Часов в 9 утра, раздается сильный звонок; я еще не вставала: ну, – думаю, – кто это так рано пришел? Вдруг кто-то стучит в дверь моей комнаты и слышу голос Глинки: “Барынька, вставайте скорей, я новую арию принес!” […] Я просто остолбенела. Когда успел он ее написать? Вчера только о ней и речь-то зашла! Ну, Михаил Иванович, – говорю я, – да вы просто колдун.’ Vorobyova, ‘K 500-mu predstavleniyu “Zhizni za tsarya”’, 173.
49 Poriss, Changing the Score.
50 See her detailed account of the aria’s genesis in Vorobyova, ‘Zhizn’ za tsarya’, 173.
51 For more on the nebulous, indirect quality of female authorship in opera of the first half of the nineteenth century, see Esse, Melina, ‘Encountering the improvvisatrice in Italian Opera’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 66 (2013), 709–770Google Scholar.
52 Vorobyova, ‘Zhizn’ za tsarya’, 170.
53 In examining this aria for traces of Vorobyova’s voice, I draw on the idea of singer-centred, ‘embodied’ musical analysis. See Smart, Mary Ann, ‘The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz’, Cambridge Opera Journal 6 (1994), 31–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
54 ‘несравненный голос, которого нельзя слышать без глубокого душевного волнения (чтобы ни пела А. Я. Петрова, один тембр ее голоса западал прямо в душу)’. Serov, Aleksandr, ‘Vospominaniya o Mikhaile Ivanoviche Glinke’, in Izbrannye stat’i [Selected Articles], ed. G. N. Khubov (Moscow and Leningrad, 1950), 1: 131Google Scholar. Vorobyova was often referred to as Petrova or Petrova-Vorobyova after she married Osip Petrov.
55 ‘сама страсть, сам огонь’. See L’vov, Mikhail, ‘Ucheniki Glinki – O. Petrov, A. Vorobyova-Petrova, D. Leonova i S. Gulak-Artemovsky – osnovopolozhniki russkogo opernogo masterstva’ [‘Glinka’s Students – Petrov, Vorobyova-Petrova, Leonova and Gulak-Artemovsky – The Establishers of Russian Operatic Mastery’], in Iz istorii vokal’nogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1964), 141Google Scholar.
56 See Serov, Aleksandr, ‘Ruslan i ruslanisty’ [‘Ruslan and the Ruslanists’] (orig. pub. 1867), in Izbrannye stat’i, 1: 227–228Google Scholar.
57 For convenience, and since the sources use these terms rather loosely, I will combine mezzo-soprano and contralto voice-types in the designation of ‘mezzo’.
58 Stasov, Izbrannye sochineniya, 285.
59 Frolova-Walker, Russian Music and Nationalism, 121-6.
60 Pruzhansky, ‘Petrov, Osip Afanas’evich’, 1: 396–7.
61 Serov, ‘Ruslan i ruslanisty’.
62 ‘Ариею Руслана О. А. Петров был не совсем доволен, – о чем при мне говорил с Глинкою, – и оттого пел ее вяло и неохотно.’ Serov, ‘Vospominaniya o Mikhaile Ivanoviche Glinke’, 89.
63 He was not the only one who found the role problematic. Chaliapin writes that ‘Later in my career I have frequently experienced a strong desire to sing Rouslan. I have often tried to master the part when I have been alone, but whenever I have had to decide whether I would sing it or not, I have always found a thousand reasons against it. I have felt that there was something in this part that I should never be able to express – but what was it?’ Chaliapin, Fyodor, Man and Mask: Forty Years in the Life of a Singer, trans. Phyllis Mégroz (New York, 1932), 54–55Google Scholar.
64 One later bass character who may have been intended as heroic is the title character of Borodin’s Prince Igor. The story is drawn from the epic The Lay of Igor’s Campaign, which concerns the war of Igor Svyatoslavich the Brave (1151–1201/2) of Rus’ against the invading Polovtsian tribes. Despite the epic source (in which Igor wins numerous battles), in the opera all he manages to do is escape from Polovtsian captivity. If Borodin and his librettists’ goal was to resurrect an ancient national hero, they failed.
65 According to the bénéfice system then in place, principal singers occasionally took turns choosing the opera to be performed. The singer for whose ‘benefit’ a given opera was performed would keep most of the proceeds. Usually, the singer would choose an opera in which he or she played the principal role; therefore, Petrov’s selection of Ruslan and Lyudmila with himself in a minor role was quite unusual.
66 L’vov, Petrov, 22–3.
67 ‘В этой опере он, может быть, выше, чем во всех остальных ролях своих, несмотря на всю краткость роли Фарлафа. Если бы была возможность снимать фотографию с музыкального исполнения, ее непременно нужно было бы снять с Петрова в “Руслане и Людмиле” и сохранить для будущего времени понятие о том, как можно и должно исполнять роль Фарлафа.’ Stasov, Vladimir, ‘Muchenitsa nashego vremeni’ [‘The Martyr of Our Time’], in Izbrannye stat’i o muzyke [Selected Articles on Music] (Leningrad, 1949), 150–151Google Scholar.
68 ‘Что сказать о г-не Петрове? Как выразить всю дань удивления к его необыкновенному таланту? Как передать всю тонкость и тактичность игры, верность выражения до мельчайших оттенков, умное в высшей степени пение? Скажем только, что из числа многочисленных ролей, так талантливо и самобытно созданных Петровым, роль Фарлафа – одна из самых лучших.’ Cui, César, ‘Operny sezon v Peterburge’ [‘The Opera Season in Petersburg’], in Muzykal’noe-kriticheskie stat’i [Music-Critical Articles] (St Petersburg, 1918), 1: 121–122Google Scholar.
69 Similar characters include Konchakovna in Borodin’s Prince Igor and Kashcheyevna in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchei the Immortal.
70 Taruskin, Richard, ‘Entoiling the Falconet’, in Defining Russia Musically, 152–185Google Scholar.
71 Marina Frolova-Walker has argued convincingly that Ratmir’s evolution from rival and tempter to submissive friend of the Russian Ruslan was meant to paint a flattering image of imperial Russia as a benevolent older brother to its provinces, which for much of the nineteenth century included some Ottoman territories. See Marina Frolova-Walker, ‘Glinka’s Three Attempts at Russianness’, in Russian Music and Nationalism.
72 ‘Но юный хазарский хан, изнеженный полу-персиянин Ратмир, с его сладострастными порывами к роскоши и лени – почему бы он не тенор? У Глинки он – контральто (!), т. е. из женоподобного мужчины (а не отрока или евнуха) превращен в женщину с густым, низким голосом. Превращению этому, конечно, можно отыскать кое-какие эстетические резоны, т. е. фантастичность контральтого регистра, оригинальность звуковых сочетаний вследствие этой фантастичности, близость пазвука (тембра) контральто к пазвуку “corno inglese”, передающему как нельзя вернее “носовой” оттенок восточной музыки. Но все это не настолько входило бы в соображение композитора, если б он не имел постоянно перед собою – впечатление от чарующего голоса и глубоко прочувствованного пения А. Я. Воробьевой.’ Serov, ‘Ruslan i ruslanistry’, 226–7.
73 Stasov, Izbrannye sochinenya, 285.
74 ‘страстным, патетическим’. Stasov, Izbrannye sochinenya, 285.
75 ‘зажгла в публике восторги’. Serov, ‘Ruslan i ruslanistry’, 249.
76 ‘бесцветным‘, ‘неуместно’. Serov, ‘Ruslan i ruslanistry’, 227–30.
77 This anecdote is recounted in L’vov ‘Ucheniki Glinki’, 126–46. I have not encountered any other instances of contraltos being forced to sing baritone roles.
78 ‘семейные заботы’. Stasov, ‘Eshche neskol’ko slova po povodu A. Ya. Petrovoi-Vorobyovoi’, 2. See also Yastrebov, ‘Petrov’, 378 and Petrov, ‘Iz neizdannoi avtobiografii’, 2. The bookends of Petrov’s memoir (written by the composer and critic Mikhail Ivanov) mention a daughter. Petrov’s memoir also indicates that his mother lived with him, possibly even after his marriage; thus it seems likely that Vorobyova’s ‘family concerns’ involved elder care as well.
79 See White, Kimberly, ‘The Cantatrice and the Profession of Singing at the Paris Opéra and the Opéra Comique, 1830–1848’, PhD diss., McGill University (2012), 195–199Google Scholar, 206–29.
80 Taruskin, Richard, ‘The Stone Guest and Its Progeny’, in Opera and Drama in Russia as Preached and Practiced in the 1860s (Ann Arbor, 1981), 262Google Scholar.
81 ‘Мимика его, искусная декламация, необычайное внятное произношение, правильное ударение заслуживают величайшей похвалы. Мимическое искусство доведено у него в этой сцене до такой степени совершенства, что, при одном его появлений, не слыхав еще ни единого слова, зрители уже сознают, по выражению лица, по судорожному движению его рук, что несчастный мельник помешан.’ Feofil Tolstoy (under the pseudonym Rostislav), ‘Razbor “Rusalki”, opera A. S. Dargomïzhskogo’ [‘An Examination of Rusalka, the opera by A. S. Dargomïzhsky’], Severnaya pchela [The Northern Bee] (13 June 1856), 677–9.
82 ‘В роли Мельника г. Петров превосходен, в полном смысле слова. Характер корыстолюбивого мужика себе на уме в первом акте передается г. Петровым как лучше нельзя. В сцене встречи с Князем в третьем акте безумный старик воплощен г. Петровым так художественно, что наводит ужас и оставляет глубокое, неизгладимое впечатление. Все оттенки рельефной роли переданы с мастерством, достойным первостепенных европейских артистов. Роль Мельника останется в богатом репертуаре г. Петрова одною из самых типически-прекрасных.’ Aleksandr Serov, ‘G-zha Latysheva v ‘Rusalke’ A. S. Dargomïzhskogo (spektakl’ 23 oktyabrya)’ [‘G-zha Latysheva in Dargomïzhsky’s Rusalka on 23 October’], Muzykal’ny i teatral’ny vestnik [Musical and Theatrical Herald] (28 October 1856), 778–9.
83 See Ivanov’s bookends to Petrov’s memoir. On his vocal decline in the 1860s, see the review by the anonymous ‘I.’ in the feuilleton ‘Peterburgskaya khronika’ [‘St Petersburg Chronicle’], a segment of the newspaper Russki invalid (19 December 1865).
84 ‘Роль мельника принадлежит к числу трех бесподобных типов, созданных Петровым в трех русских операх, и едва ли его художественное творчество не достигло в мельнике высших пределов.’ Anonymous reviewer for Sankt-peterburgskie vedomosti [St Petersburg Gazette] 120 (1868). Quoted in L’vov, Petrov, 26.
85 It is not clear whether the reviewer was referring to Ruslan or Farlaf as the ‘incomparable type’ that Petrov created in Ruslan and Lyudmila. I assume the latter because Petrov himself clearly believed that Farlaf was a better vehicle for his talents, and he received more acclaim in that role than as Ruslan.
86 ‘Мельник здесь – грозная, величественная фигура отца и мстителя.’ L’vov, Petrov, 28–9.
87 See Orlova, Alexandra ed., Musorgsky Remembered, trans. Véronique Zaytzeff and Frederick Morrison (Bloomington, 1991), 3–4Google Scholar, 51–2.
88 ‘Невозможно забыть иронию вместе с властностью и силу, которую был проникнут его Грозный.’ See Ivanov’s bookend to Petrov.
89 Pruzhansky, A. M., ‘Ivan Aleksandrovich Mel’nikov’, in Otechestvennye pevtsy, 1: 323–324Google Scholar.
90 See Paert, Irina, Spiritual Elders: Charisma and Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy (Dekalb, IL, 2010), 44Google Scholar.
91 Stasov, Vladimir, ‘Recollections of Musorgsky’, in Orlova, ed., Musorgsky Remembered, 16Google Scholar.
92 Kompaneiskii, Nikolai, ‘Recollections of Musorgsky’, in Orlova, ed., Musorgsky Remembered, 5Google Scholar.
93 See Pruzhansky, A. M., ‘Krutikova, Aleksandra Pavlovna,’ in Otechestvennye pevtsy, 1: 240–241Google Scholar.
94 See Pruzhansky, ‘Petrov, Osip Afanas’evich,’ 1: 396–7.
95 ‘Я сначала была поражена, потом разрыдалась так, что долго не могла успокоиться. Описать, как пела, или, вернее, выражала, Анна Яковлевна, невозможно; надо слышать, что может сделать гениальный человек, даже потеряв совершенно голос и уж будучи в преклонных летах. Тут я вполне могла понять впечатление, которое она производила в молодости.’ Shestakova, Lyudmila, Moi vechera: vospominaniya L. I. Shestakovoi [My Evenings: Memoirs of L. I. Shestakova] (St Petersburg, 1895), 8Google Scholar.
96 ‘J’ai vu aussi sa femme (le contralto) qui a 60 ans et pas une seule dent à la mâchoire supérieure. Eh bien! après dîner elle a chanté deux romances assez bizarres, mais touchantes de Mr Moussorgski (l’auteur de Boris Godunov, qui était present) avec une voix encore adorable, d’un timbre jeune, expressif, charmant! Je suis resté tout béant, et j’ai été attendri jusqu’aux larmes, je vous assure.’ Letter from 22 May 1874 (Old Style), in Ivan Tourguénev: Nouvelle correspondance inédite, ed. A. Zviguilsky, 2 vols. (Paris, 1971), 1: 211–12.
97 ‘с истинно несравненным трагизмом и чувством’. See Vladimir Stasov, ‘Modest Petrovich Musorgsky’, first published in Vestnik Yevropy [Herald from Europe] 5 and 6, 1881; reprinted in Stasov, Izbrannye sochineniya (1952), 2: 210.
98 Pruzhansky, ‘Petrova-Vorobyova, Anna Yakovlevna’, 1: 397–8.
99 Vanya’s aria ends on an optimistic note, reflecting his happy integration into the Susanin family, while Marfa’s aria is more tragic, reflecting her seduction and abandonment by a frivolous boyar.
100 Few modern audiences would consider religiously motivated mass suicide heroic. Nevertheless, in the moral universe of the opera, Marfa’s religious sect, that of the conservative Old Believers, is depicted as the only principled group within a power struggle of immoral, self-serving aristocrats. Their self-immolation is presented as abnegation of the will (in contrast to the ‘will to power’ of the other characters) and is given an ethereal, ecstatic musical realisation.
101 Stasov’s letter to Arseniy Golenishchev-Kutuzov (22 August 1877), quoted in Taruskin, Richard, Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue (Princeton, 1993), 351Google Scholar.
102 See Kompaneiskii, ‘Recollections of Musorgsky’, 7.
103 ‘скромно доживала свою жизнь в своей семье’. Istoricheskii vestnik: istoriko-literaturny zhurnal (The Historical Herald: A Literary-Historical Journal) 84 (May 1901), 1233–4.
104 Stasov, Izbrannye sochineniya, 282. See also John Warrack, ‘Petrov, Osip (Afanas’yevich)’, in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, 20 March 2014, www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriberarticle/grove/music/21479.
105 The number of trouser roles in Russian opera is fairly small. Notable ones in addition to those discussed in this article include Izyaslav in Serov’s Rogneda, Basmanov in Tchaikovsky’s The Oprichnik, Lel’ in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden, Nezhata in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko and the Page in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya.