Customer Reviews

Rachmaninov: Aleko

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Both of the reviews here are posted also for the Orbelian recording. This MP3 Download is for a completely different, older Bolshoi recording with an entirely different cast.

I've never really gotten into Russian opera. Is it the language? The musical style? I don't know...but this is wonderful. It's short and it's tuneful. This is early Rachmaninoff and it is very Romantic...similar to the Second Piano Concerto, although the tunes aren't as good. Maybe it would be more accurate to say it's similar to a tone poem like "The Rock" or "Prince Rostislav". If you know those pieces and like them, I think you will like this. The big climaxes are very exciting and the orchestral music in the opera is quite beautiful.

This is very inexpensive on amazon, the singers are great (not shrill like Russian singers sometimes are)...why not give it a try?!

There is a "but" unfortunately. Without too much ado, this is a brilliant piece of work. The music is beautiful (tuneful, melodic etc.) and the conducting is excellent. Orbelian really does a great job (the love duet, for example, magically evokes a warm starry night). It is the characters who make one hesitate...let me quickly say that they are not that bad. It's just that this opera had such potential. It's not too demanding and so we should expect to have legendary recordings of this so-called "Russian Cavalleria Rusticana". The DG recording with Jaarvi would have been ideal (Nicolai Ghiaurov in the title role is, for me, definitive) but I cannot abide the unsteady Guleghina.

In summary, Mikhail Kit as the Old Gypsy is excellent. His rich, dark bass is both morose and authoritative. Vassilly Gerello, as Zemfira's illicit paramour, is simply brilliant. His voice is young, fresh and a soaring beauty to behold. On the down side, however, Vsevolod Grivnov, while not giving a bad performance, is not as deep and sonorous as you would probably like. He can't hold a candle to Ghiaurov. Still, I emphasise, it's not a bad performance. In fact, he does convey his emotions quite well. My other quibble is with Olga Guryakova's wobbly Zemfira. She doesn't sound too old for the role...simply unsteady. This was most frustrating given my hopes after beholding her ravishing photo on the cover. I expected a little more fire and viscera. Instead, I was once more confronted with what (for me) is the plague of Russian opera...the so-called "Slavonic wobble". If you accept this as idiomatic then go right ahead. Even so, this isn't so bad a Zemfira as to cast aside the concept of trying this recording. Perhaps the trade-off sets the Jaarvi recording in better standing. Meanwhile, I'll wait until Marina Shaguch or Galina Gorchakova records Zemfira.