The Russian Opera — Reading Companion

pe were already paramount in the country. Italian music had reached the capital and long held the field. The first twenty years of the nineteenth century witnessed a passionate revival of interest in the national music, and when, in 1836, Glinka created _A Life for the Tsar_, he inaugurated a fourth period in the history of national art, the limits of which have yet to be ultimately defined.

Of the first, the primitive period in Russian music, there are few records beyond the allusions to the love of minstrelsy which we find in the earliest known songs and legends of the Russian Slavs. When we reach the second period, at which the national music entered upon a struggle with the spiritual authorities, we begin to realise from the intolerance of the clerical attitude how deeply the art must have already laid hold upon the spirit of the people. Whether from a desire to be faithful to oriental asceticism, and to the austere spirit which animated the Church during the first centuries which followed the birth of Christ, or because of the need to keep a nation so recently converted, and still so deeply impregnated with paganism, fenced off from all contaminating influences, the Church soon waged relentless war upon every description of profane recreation. The Orthodox clergy were not only opposed to music, but to every form of secular art. Moreover the folksongs were of pagan origin; therefore, just as the priests of to-day still look askance at the songs and legends of the Brittany peasants which perpetuate the memory of heathen customs, so the Byzantine monks of the eleventh century, and onwards, denounced the national songs of Russia as being hostile to the spirit of Christianity. Songs, dances, and spectacular amusements were all condemned. Even at the weddings of the Tsars, as late as the seventeenth century, dancing and singing were rigorously excluded, only fanfares of trumpets, with the music of flutes and drums, and fireworks, being permitted. Professor Milioukhov, in his "Sketch for a History of Russian Culture," quotes one of the austere moralists of mediæval times who condemns mirth as a snare of the evil one; "laughter does not edify or save us; on the contrary it is the ruin of edification. Laughter displeases the Holy Spirit and drives out virtue, because it makes men forget death and eternal punishment. Lord, put mirth away from me; give me rather tears and lamentations." So persistent and effectual was the repression of all secular enjoyments that one monkish chronicler was able to remark with evident satisfaction that, for the time being, "there was silence in all the land of Russia."

Under these conditions the primitive music had little chance of development. Driven from the centres of dawning civilisation, it took refuge in forest settlements and remote villages. With it fled the bards and the mummers, the gleemen--those "merry lads" as the Russians called them--so dear to the hearts of the people. These musicians were originally of two classes: minstrels and _gusslee_ players (harpists), such as the famous Skald, Bayan; and the _Skomorokhi_, or mummers, who sang and juggled for the diversion of the people. In course of time we find allusions to several subdivisions in the band of _Skomorokhi_, all of which may now be said to have their modern equivalents in Russia. There was the _Skomorokh-pievets_, or singer of the mythical or heroic songs, who afterwards became absorbed into the ranks of the poets with the rise of a school of poetry at the close of the sixteenth century; the _Skomorokh-goudets_, who played for dancing, and was afterwards transformed into the orchestral player, exchanging his _gusslee_ or _dombra_ for some more modern western instrument; the _Skomorokh-plyassoun_, the dancer, now incorporated in the corps-de-ballet; and the _Skomorokh-gloumosslovets_, the buffoon or entertainer, who eventually became merged in the actor.

Monkish persecution could not entirely stamp out the love of music in the land. To attain that end it would have been necessary to uproot the very soul of the nation. Despite the fulminations of the clergy, the nobles still secretly cherished and patronised their singers, who beguiled the tedium of the long winters in their _poteshni palati_. These dependents of the aristocracy were the first actors known to the Russians. At the same time such fanatical teaching could not fail to alter in some degree the temper of a people wholly uneducated and prone to superstition. The status of the minstrels gradually declined. They ceased to be "welcome guests" in hut and hall, and the _Skomorokhi_ degenerated into companies of roving thieves, numbering often from fifty to a hundred, who compelled the peasants to supply them with food, as they moved from place to place, driven onward by their clerical denunciators. By way of compromise, the gleemen now appear to have invented a curious class of song which they called "spiritual," in which pagan and Christian sentiments were mingled in a strange and unedifying jumble. The pure delight of singing having been condemned as a sin, and practised more or less _sub rosa_, the standard of songs became very much corrupted. The degeneracy of music and kindred forms of recreation was most probably the outcome of this intolerant persecution. But though they had helped to bring about this state of affairs, there was no doubt something to be said for the attitude of the clergy, if we may believe the testimony of western travellers in Russia in the sixteenth century. The minstrels in the service of the richer nobles deteriorated as a class, and claimed their right to give entertainments in towns and villages, which were often of scandalous coarseness and profanity. The same may be said of the puppet-shows (_Koukolnaya teatr_), of somewhat later date, the abominable performances of which shocked the traveller Adam Olearius when he accompanied the ambassador sent by Frederick Duke of Holstein to the Great Duke of Muscovy in 1634 and 1636. The long struggle between spiritual authority and the popular craving for secular recreation continued until the reign of Alexis Mikhaïlovich (1645-1676).

In a measure the Church was successful in turning the thoughts of the people from worldly amusements to the spiritual drama enacted within her doors. During these long dark centuries, when Russia had neither universities nor schools, nor any legitimate means of recreation, the people found a dramatic sensation in the elaborate and impressive ritual of the Orthodox Church. Patouillet, in his book "Le Théâtre de Moeurs Russes," says: "the iconostasis, decorated with paintings, erected between the altar and the faithful, resembles, with its three doors, an antique proscenium. The 'imperial' door, reserved for the officiating priest, and formerly for the Emperor, recalls by its name, if not by its destination, the 'royal' entrance of the Greek theatre. Thus there is, as it were, a double scene being enacted, one which takes place before the eyes of the congregation, the other hidden from them during certain portions of the ritual, particularly at the moment of the 'Holy Mysteries' (the Consecration of the elements). These alternations of publicity and mystery; the celebrant reappearing and disappearing; the deacon, who goes in and out at the side doors and stands upon the _Ambon_, like a kind of [Greek: logeion], to declare the divine word to the assembled Christians, dialoguing sometimes with them, sometimes with the officiating priest; the double choir of singers, arranged even in this day on each side of the iconostasis, and finally the attitude of the faithful themselves--rather that of a crowd of spectators than of participants--all these details formed a spectacle full of dramatic interest in times of simple faith."

On certain religious festivals, allegorical representations, such as the Washing of the Feet and the Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, were enacted in public places. The early marriage service of the Orthodox Church, with its pompous religious ceremonial and social customs, such as the pretended lamentations of the bride, and the choruses of the young girls, held distinctly dramatic elements. In these ecclesiastical ceremonies and social usages may be traced the first germs of the Russian drama.

In Western Russia we find the school drama (Shkolnaya-drama) established in the ecclesiastical Academy of Kiev as early as the close of the fifteenth century. The students used to recite the events of the Nativity in public places and illustrate their words by the help of the _Vertep_, a kind of portable retable on which were arranged figures representing the Birth of Christ. The Passion of Our Lord was represented in the same way, and the recital was interspersed with choral singing, and not infrequently with interludes of a secular or comic nature. This form of drama had found its way into Russia from Poland. In 1588 Giles Fletcher, Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to Russia, gives an account of a representation in Moscow, which reminds us of the Scoppio del Carro, the Easter ceremony at Florence, when a mechanical dove carrying the "Pazzi fire," lit from the sacred flint brought back from the Holy Sepulchre, is set rushing along a wire from the altar to the car, hung about with fireworks, which stands outside the great West Door of the Duomo. When the bird comes in contact with the car the pyrotechnical display is ignited, and if all goes without a hitch the vintage and harvest will prosper.

Says Fletcher: "The weeke before the Nativitie of Christ every bishop in his cathedral church setteth forth a shew of the three children in the oven.[2] Where the Angell is made to come flying from the roof of the church, with great admiration of the lookers-on, and many terrible flashes of fire are made with rosen and gun-powder by the Chaldeans (as they call them), that run about the town all the twelve days, disguised in their plaiers coats, and make much good sport for the honour of the bishop's pageant. At the Mosko, the emperour himselfe and the empress never faile to be at it, though it be but the same matter plaid every yeere, without any new invention at all."

Dr. Giles Fletcher was a member of the family so well-known in the history of English literature; he was the uncle of John Fletcher, the dramatist, and the father of Phineas Fletcher, the author of the poem "The Purple Island." How naïve and almost barbarous must this Russian mystery play have seemed to the Englishman who had probably witnessed some of the innumerable comedies, tragi-comedies, farces, and tragedies which were then enacted at home in the universities, the Inns of Court, and elsewhere; and who may very likely already have frequented the theatre in Blackfriars or Shoreditch, and seen the plays of Marlowe and Greene, although as yet hardly anything of Shakespeare!

Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584), who first sent for printers from Germany and published the earliest Russian book (containing the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles) in 1564, did nothing towards the secular education of his Court or of the people. Nor was there much progress in this respect in the reign of Boris Godounov (1598-1605). Secular dramatic art continued to be discouraged by the Church, without any patronage being accorded to it in high places until the reign of Alexis Mikhaïlovich. This prince, who may justly be called the founder of a national theatre in Russia, showed a real interest in the fine arts. He summoned a few musicians to Moscow, who taught the Russians the use of instruments hitherto unused by them. This encouragement of music at his Court provoked a final outburst of clerical intolerance. In 1649, by order of the Patriarch Joseph, all the musical instruments in the city of Moscow were confiscated and burnt in the open market place. Those belonging to the Tsar's private band were spared, perhaps from a fear of offending their royal patron, but more probably because their owners, being Germans, were welcome to go to perdition in their own way.

When we come to the middle of the seventeenth century and the advent of the enlightened Alexis Mikhaïlovich, the history of Russian drama, so closely associated with that of its opera, assumes a more definite outline. This prince married Natalia Naryshkin, the adopted daughter of the Boyard Artamon Matveiev. Matveiev's wife was of Scottish origin--her maiden name was Hamilton--so that the outlook of this household was probably somewhat cosmopolitan. The Tsaritsa Natalia was early interested in the theatre; partly perhaps because she had heard of it from her adopted parents, but most probably her taste was stimulated by witnessing one of the performances which were given from time to time among the foreigners in the German quarter of Moscow. Lord Carlisle, in his "Relation of Three Embassies from His Majesty Charles II. to the Great Duke of Moscovy," makes mention of one of these performances in 1664. He says: "Our Musique-master composed a Handsome Comedie in Prose, which was acted in our house."

Travelled nobles and ambassadors also told of the great enjoyment derived from the theatre in Western Europe. Likhatchev, who was sent to Florence in 1658, wrote with naïve enthusiasm of an opera which he had seen there; but he seems to have been more impressed by the scenic effects, which included a moving sea filled with fish, and a vanishing palace, than by the music which accompanied these wonders. Potemkin, who represented the Tsar at the Court of the Grand Monarque, saw Molière's company in "Amphitryon" in 1668, and doubtless communicated his impressions to his sovereign. But before this date, as early as 1660, Alexis Mikhaïlovich had given orders to an Englishman in his service to engage for him "Master Glassblowers, Master Engravers and Master Makers of comedies." It was long, however, before Russia actually attained to the possession of this last class of workers. Finally, incited by his wife's tastes, by the representations of his more polished nobles, and not a little by personal inclinations, Alexis issued an _Oukaz_, on May 15th, 1672, ordering Count Von-Staden to recruit in Courland all kinds "of good master workmen, together with very excellent skilled trumpeters, and masters who would know how to organise plays." Unfortunately the reputation of Russia as a dwelling-place was not attractive. Doubtless the inhabitants of Eastern Europe still spoke with bated breath of the insane cruelties of Ivan the Terrible which had taken place a hundred years earlier. At any rate the Courlanders showed no great anxiety to take service under the Tsar, and Staden returned from his mission to Riga and other towns, in December, 1672, with only "one trumpeter" and "four musicians." Nevertheless the _Oukaz_ itself is an important landmark in the cultural evolution of Russia, marking, according to Tikhonraviev, the end of her long term of secular isolation as regards the drama. These five imported musicians formed the nucleus of what was to expand one day into the orchestra of the Imperial Opera.

Alexis Mikhaïlovich was evidently impatient to see some kind of drama enacted at his Court; for in June of the same year, without waiting for "the masters who would know how to organise plays," he determined to celebrate the birthday of his son Peter--later to be known as Peter the Great--with a theatrical performance. The Tsar therefore commissioned Yagan (otherwise Johann) Gottfried Gregory, one of the protestant pastors residing in the German quarter of Moscow, to write a play, or "act" as it is described in the Tsar's edict, dealing with the Biblical subject of Esther. As a temporary theatre, a room was specially arranged at Preobrajensky, a village on the outskirts of Moscow which now forms part of the city. Red and green hangings, carpets and tapestries of various sorts were lent from the Tsar's household to decorate the walls and the seats of honour; the bulk of the audience, however, had to content themselves with bare wooden benches. The scenery was painted by a Dutchman named Peter Inglis, who received the pompous title of "Master-Perspective-Maker." The Boyard Matveiev, the Tsaritsa's adoptive father, took an active interest in the organisation of this primitive theatre, and was appointed about this time, "Director of the Tsar's Entertainments," being in fact the forerunner of the later "Intendant" or Director of the Imperial Opera. Pastor Gregory, aided by one or two teachers in the German school, wrote the text of a "tragi-comedy" entitled _The Acts of Artaxerxes_. Gregory, who had been educated at the University of Jena, probably selected just such a subject as he had been accustomed to see presented in German theatres in his early youth. Although he had long resided in Moscow he does not seem to have acquired complete command of the Russian language, which was then far from being the subtle and beautiful medium of expression which it has since become. The tragi-comedy was written in a strange mixture of Russian and German, and we read that he had the assistance of two translators from the Chancellery of Ambassadors. A company numbering sixty-four untrained actors was placed at his service; they were drawn from among the children of foreign residents and from the better class of tradesfolk. Music evidently played an important part in the performance; the orchestra consisting of Germans, and of servants from Matveiev's household who played on "organs, viols and other instruments." The organist of the German church, Simon Gutovsky, was among the musicians. A chorus also took part in the play, consisting of the choir of the Court Chapel, described as "the Imperial Singing-Deacons."

The actual performance of _The Acts of Artaxerxes_ took place on October 17th, 1672 (O.S.), and is said to have lasted ten hours, making demands upon the endurance of the audience which puts Wagnerian enthusiasts completely to shame. The Tsar watched the spectacle with unflagging attention and afterwards generously rewarded those who had taken part in the performance. The attitude of the clergy had so far changed that the Tsar's chaplain, the Protopope Savinov, undertook to set at rest his master's last scruples of conscience by pointing to the example of the Greek emperors and other potentates.

Gaining courage, and also a growing taste for this somewhat severe form of recreation, Alexis went on to establish a more permanent theatrical company. In the following year (1673) Pastor Gregory was commanded to instruct twenty-six young men, some drawn from the clerks of the Chancellery of State, others from the lower orders of the merchants or tradespeople, who were henceforth to be known as "the Comedians of His Majesty the Tsar." At first the audience consisted only of the favoured intimate circle of the Tsar, and apparently no ladies were present; but after a time the Tsaritsa and the Tsarevnas were permitted to witness the performance from the seclusion of a Royal Box protected by a substantial _grille_. The theatre was soon transferred from Preobrajensky to the Poteshny Dvorets in the Kremlin.

_The Acts of Artaxerxes_ was followed by a series of pieces, nearly all of a highly edifying nature, written or arranged by Gregory and others: _Tobias_, _The Chaste Joseph_, _Adam and Eve_, _Orpheus and Eurydice_ (with couplets and choruses) and _How Judith cut off the head of Holofernes_. The libretto of the last-named play is still in existence, and gives us some idea of the patient endurance of primitive theatre-goers in Russia. It is in seven acts, subdivided into twenty-nine scenes, with a prologue and an interlude between the third and fourth acts; the characters number sixty-three; all the female parts were acted by youths. The libretto is constructed more or less on the plan of the German comedies of the period, but what gives the piece a special importance in the history of Russian opera is the fact that it contains arias and choruses linked with the action of the piece, such as the Song of the Kings, in which they bewail their sad fate when taken captive by Holofernes, a soldier's Drinking Song, a Love-Song sung by Vagav at Judith's feast, and a Jewish Song of Victory, the words of which are paraphrased from Biblical sources. The author is supposed, without much foundation in fact, to have been Simeon Polotsky, of whom we shall hear later. The piece was probably translated from German sources. A custom was then started, which prevailed for a considerable time in Russia, of confiding the translation of plays to the clerks in the Chancellery of the Ambassadors, which department answered in some measure to our Foreign Office. The composer of the music is unknown, but Cheshikin, in his "History of Russian Opera," considers himself fully justified in describing it as the _first Russian opera_. Two hundred years later Serov composed a popular opera on the subject of Judith, an account of which will be found on page 150.