Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) [Illustration: FEODOR IVANOVICH SHALIAPIN] THE RUSSIAN OPERA BY ROSA NEWMARCH [Illustration: colophon] WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED ARUNDEL PLACE HAYMARKET LONDON S.W. MCMXIV THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX. TO FEODOR IVANOVICH SHALIAPIN IN MEMORY OF OUR OLD FRIEND VLADIMIR VASSILIEVICH STASSOV PREFACE Between January 19th, 1900, and April 4th, 1905, I read before the Musical Association of London five papers dealing with the Development of National Opera in Russia, covering a period from the first performance of Glinka's _A Life for the Tsar_ in 1836, to the production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera _The Tsar's Bride_, in 1899. These lectures were illustrated by the following artists: the late Mrs. Henry J. Wood, Miss Grainger Kerr, Mr. Seth Hughes, Mr. Robert Maitland; Sir (Mr.) Henry J. Wood and Mr. Richard Epstein at the piano. While using these lectures as the scaffolding of my present book, I have added a considerable amount of new material, amassed during ten years unremitting research into my subject. The additions concern chiefly the earlier phases of Russian music, and the operas that have appeared since 1900. The volume also contains some account of the foundation of the nationalist school of composers under the leadership of Balakirev. It has been my privilege to meet and converse with most of the members of this circle. I give also a few details about the literary champion of "the Invincible Band," Vladimir Stassov, under whose guidance I first studied the history of Russian music. With all modesty I believe I may claim to have been a pioneer worker in this field. When in 1895 I published my translation (from the French edition of M. Habets) of Stassov's book on Borodin, and followed it up in 1897 by a series of articles--the fruits of my first visit to Russia--in that short-lived weekly _The Musician_, the literature of the subject was by no means copious, even in Russia itself; while the daily increasing public in Western Europe who were anxious to learn something about the remarkable galaxy of composers newly arisen in the east, based their knowledge and opinions almost entirely upon César Cui's pamphlet _La Musique en Russie_, an interesting, but in many respects misleading, statement of the phenomenon; or upon the views propagated by Rubinstein and his