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| | Arts Calendar / March 25 / Opera |
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 Opera in seven scenes to music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Libretto by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Vladimir Belsky based on Russian bylinas. Conductor: Timur Zangiev. Director and Set Designer: Dmitry Tcherniakov. Costume Designer: Elena Zaitseva. Sung in Russian with English surtitles. The music is highly evocative, and Rimsky-Korsakov's famed powers of orchestration are abundantly in evidence throughout the score. According to the Soviet critic Boris Asafyev, writing in 1922, Sadko constitutes the summit of Rimsky-Korsakov's craft. From the opus 5 tone poem the composer quoted its most memorable passages, including the opening theme of the swelling sea, and other themes as leitmotivs - he himself set out to "utlize for this opera the material of my symphonic poem, and, in any event, to make use of its motives as leading motives for the opera". The merchants of Novgorod are sitting down to a feast, rejoicing in their prosperity. Nezhata, a singer and gusli player from Kiev, sings on the heroic days of his city?s past. The merchants would like one of their own countrymen to sing about their town and the minstrel Sadko, who enters at that moment, is asked to oblige. But his song disturbs them: Novgorod is on a lake, he sings, with no access to the ocean. If only their ships could reach the sea they would bring back fortunes from all over the world...
Bolshoi Theater  |
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