- This opera is based on Alexander Pushkin’s narrative poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820).1 Glinka knew Pushkin and they had initial discussions on collaborating on this project before Pushkin died in 1837. Eventually the libretto was adapted from Pushkin by Glinka and several collaborators.2
- Because of Pushkin’s untimely death, Glinka composed a lot of the music before he had any libretto put together. He played some of this material in 1838 for a writer he knew, Nikolay Polevoy, who then wrote jokingly to a friend, “The opera is almost finished, but as yet there is no text. A strange way of writing!”3
- Glinka completed Ruslan and Lyudmila, “A Magic Opera,” in 1842, and it received its first performance that year.4
- Style: to evoke the magical elements of the opera’s plot, Glinka used innovative harmonic devices which were rare in Western music, like whole tone scales and distant seventh chords connected by a common tone. These departures from Western tonal harmony were influential to Rimsky-Korsakov and other Russian composers of the next generation.5
- Story: Ruslan is a he Prince of Kiev, who must rescue his bride Lyudmila, kidnapped by a sorcerer on their wedding night.6
Sources
- Dimitry Dimitriyevich Blagoy, “Aleksandr Pushkin,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (June 2, 2019), accessed October 10, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aleksandr-Sergeyevich-Pushkin.
- Stuart Campbell, “Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 10, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000011279.
- Richard Taruskin, “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed October 10, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000005029.
- Campbell, “Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich,” Grove Music Online.
- Ibid.
- Taruskin, “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” Grove Music Online.
Cut IDs
21316, 40736, 40941, 41010