Comic Opera - Russian Comic Opera

Russian Comic Opera

The first opera presented in Russia, in 1731, was a comic opera (or "commedia per musica"), Calandro, by an Italian composer, Giovanni Alberto Ristori. It was followed by the comic operas of other Italians, like Galuppi and Cimarosa, and also the Belgian/French composer Grétry.

The first Russian comic opera was Anyuta (1772). The text was written by Mikhail Popov, with music by an unknown composer, consisting of a selection of popular songs specified in the libretto. Another successful comic opera, Melnik – koldun, obmanshchik i svat ("The Miller who was a Wizard, a Cheat and a Match-maker"', text by Alexander Ablesimov, Moscow, 1779), on a subject resembling Rousseau's Devin, is attributed to Mikhail Sokolovsky. Ivan Kerzelli, Vasily Pashkevich and Yevstigney Fomin also wrote a series of successful comic operas in the 18th century.

In the 19th century, Russian comic opera was further developed by Alexey Verstovsky who composed more 30 opera-vaudevilles and 6 grand operas (most of them with spoken dialogue). Later, Modest Mussorgsky worked on two comic operas, The Fair at Sorochyntsi and Zhenit'ba ("The Marriage"), which he left unfinished (they were completed only in 20th century). Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote a comic opera, Cherevichki (after Nikolai Gogol, 1885, 1887 Moscow). Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed May Night 1878–1879 and The Golden Cockerel 1906–1907.

In the 20th century, the best examples of comic opera by Russian composers were Igor Stravinsky's Mavra (1922) and The Rake's Progress (1951), Sergey Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges (1919) and Betrothal in a Monastery (1940–1941), and Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose (1928, staged 1930). Simultaneously, the genres of light music, operetta, musical comedy, and later, rock opera, were developed by such composers as Isaak Dunayevsky, Nikolai Strelnikov, Yuri Milyutin, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Dmitri Shostakovich (Opus 105: Moscow, Cheryomushki, operetta in 3 acts, (1958)), Tikhon Khrennikov, and later by Gennady Gladkov, Alexey Rybnikov, and Alexander Zhurbin.

The 21st century in Russian comic opera began with the noisy premieres of two works whose genre could be described as "opera-farce":

Tsar Demyan (Царь Демьян) – A frightful opera performance. A collective project of five authors wrote the work: Leonid Desyatnikov and Vyacheslav Gaivoronsky from St. Petersburg, Iraida Yusupova and Vladimir Nikolayev from Moscow, and the creative collective "Kompozitor", which is a pseudonym for the well-known music critic Pyotr Pospelov. The libretto is by Elena Polenova, based on a folk-drama, Tsar Maksimilyan, and the work premiered on June 20, 2001 at the Mariinski Theatre, St Petersburg. Prize "Gold Mask, 2002" and "Gold Soffit, 2002".

Rosenthal's Children (Дети Розенталя), an opera in two acts by Leonid Desyatnikov, with a libretto by Vladimir Sorokin. This work was commissioned by the Bolshoi theatre and premiered on March 23, 2005. The staging of the opera was accompanied by juicy scandal; however it was an enormous success.