Mlada: “Procession of the Nobles”

• Rimsky-Korsakov composed Mlada between 1889-90. It premiered in St. Petersburg in 1892.¹
• Rimsky-Korsakov described this work as a “magical opera-ballet.”² The work is a combination of ballet and opera, and the title role is played by a ballerina, not a singer.³
• In 1872, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Cui, Borodin and Minkus had all attempted to collaborate on an opera entitled Mlada. This project was never finished, so Rimsky-Korsakov decided to adapt the libretto and set it to music by himself, and the result was his opera Mlada.⁴

“After the completion of Mlada, I have nothing left to write. I have done all I could with my limited talent. Before composing Mlada, some themes were still left untouched; now there is nothing. I have everything that suits me: mermaids, wood-goblins, Russian pastoral, khorovod dances, rituals, transformations, oriental music, nights, evenings, sunrises, little birds, stars, clouds, floods, storms, deluges, evil spirits, pagan gods, horrible monsters, hunts, entrances, dances, priests, idolatry, the musical development of Russian and other Slavonic elements, and so on. Mlada has filled in all the gaps.” 

Rimsky-Korsakov on composing Mlada, and how he loved its many themes from Slavic mythology⁵

• Story: Voyslava, in love with Price Yaromir, has murdered the prince’s bride Mlada. In the opera, Voyslava, supported by supernatural forces of evil, and the ghost of Mlada, supported by the beneficent deities, compete for Yaromir’s love.⁶
• This movement, also known as The Procession of the Princes, takes place in the opera’s second act, during an ancient Slavic midsummer festival full of dances, folk songs and spectacle.⁷
• This movement was included in the orchestral suite from Mlada that Rimsky-Korsakov extracted in 1903.⁸

1. Marina Frolova-Walker, Mark Humphreys, Lyle Neff, Rita McAllister, Iosif Genrikhovich Rayskin, and Detlef Gojowy, “Rimsky-Korsakov family,” Grove Music Online (2001), January 8, 2020, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000052074. 
2. Ibid.
3. Richard Taruskin, “Mlada (ii),” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed January 8, 2020,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000903247. 
4. Frolova-Walker et al, “Rimsky-Korsakov family,” Grove Music Online. 
5. Quoted in Ibid.
6. Taruskin, “Mlada (ii),” Grove Music Online.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.