An Evening of Vocal Duets by Russian Composers

Artists of the Primorsky Stage Opera Company present a new chamber programme, featuring vocal duos by Russian composers. The listeners will hear most popular works in this genre written by the 19^th century’s authors, including elegias by Rubenstein (Mountains Peaks), Glinka (Don’t Tempt Me Needlessly), “Russian songs” by Gurilyov (A Grey-Winged Swallow Sweeps), Bulakhov (Troika) and many others. Also, such a concert is impossible without compositions which are rarely performed on stage, in this case, they will include Rimsky-Korsakov’s philosophical Angel and Demon, Glinka’s Italian romance Mio ben ricordati and Arensky’s lyrical Two Roses.

In addition to standalone duos, the concert programme also features cycles written for two voices. Thus, Five Poems by Vladimir Nabokov (1999) by St Petersburg composer Alexander Smelkov will be performed for the Primorsky audience for the first time. The name of this author became known to a wide audience after his large-scale opera The Brothers Karamazov had been staged by the Mariinsky Theatre in 2008. The critics noted Smelkov’s indisputable musical gift, which, among other things, is revealed in synthesizing the musical language of the 19-20^th century composers in his works. Being especially sensitive to a poetic word, he writes both short and long poems, and his vocal cycles occupy a significant place in his creative output.

Six Duets, Op. 46 were written by Tchaikovsky in 1880 in Kamenka, where he was staying with his sister’s family during his summer holidays. The relaxed and peaceful atmosphere inspired the composer to create vocal ensembles for home performance, most of which are close to concert pieces and require a significant vocal and piano mastery. The duets vary in terms of their genres and themes: here we can find both the gloomy Scottish Ballad, which by its intensity of emotions is getting close to a dramatic operatic scene, the playful “Russian song” and sad elegies, the most famous of which - Tears - contains a big piano postlude, summing up the meaning of the romance. Depending on the character of the images, Tchaikovsky flexibly uses different types of voice combinations: sometimes it’s collective singing, sometimes - a dialogue, where the performers join in and continue each other’s lines. The cycle is enframed by two bright, landscape-type romances - The Evening and the Dawn. They make one think about a family playing music all night and not noticing that the morning has come. The delightful duet cycle passes just as fleetingly, revealing the fascination of the ensemble music-making.

Natalia Rogudeyeva