Firebirds of Paris
French and Belgian Singers in Russian Opera and Song

As every reader of War and Peace knows, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Russian upper classes spoke French, and were steeped in French culture. But it was only at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the twentieth that Russian culture began to captivate France. In the case of Russian music, this was largely the result of the efforts of one individual, Sergei Diaghilev (1872–1929). In 1907, two years before the first season of the Ballets russes, this impresario of genius made his Paris debut with five concerts held at the Paris Opera. sponsored by Countess Greffuhle’s influential Société des grandes auditions de France, these “Cinq concerts historiques russes” featured the Lamoureux Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Arthur Nikisch, Camille Chevillard, and Félix Blumenfeld. These concerts introduced music never previously heard in the West by Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Glazunov, Glinka, Liadov, Liapunov, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, Taneyev, and Tchaikovsky. At the first and second concerts, Rimsky conducted highlights from his operas Christmas Eve,Snegurochka, and Mlada. Joseph Hofmann played Scriabin’s piano concerto at the third concert, and the Liapunov concerto at the fifth. The fourth concert featured Sergei Rachmaninoff performing his second Piano Concerto. The great Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin, making his Paris debut, participated in four of the five concerts: at the first, he appeared in two operatic roles: first as Svetozar in Act 1 of Ruslan and Lyudmila, with Marianna Cherkasskaya as Lyudmila, Evgenya Zbrueva as Ratmir, Dimitri Smirnov as Bayan, and Vladimir Kastorsky as Ruslan, then as Galitsky in extracts from Act 1 of Prince Igor, with Cherkasskaya as Yaroslavna; at the second concert, Chaliapin sang songs by Musorgsky and performed the role of Boris in Act 2 of Boris Godunov, with Smirnov as Shuisky, while Zbrueva and Elizaveta Petrenko evidently shared the roles of Xenia, Fyodor, and the Nurse; at the third, he sang Pimen’s monologue and Varlaam’s song from Boris Godunov, as well as the final duet from Prince Igor, with Félia Litvinne who also sang Yaroslavna’s lament; and at the fourth, he sang in Rachmaninoff’s Spring cantata and as Dosifei in Act 5 of Khovanshchina, with Zbrueva as Marfa and Smirnov as Andrei. At the fifth concert, Marianna Cherkasskaya sang an aria from Cui’s William Ratcliff, followed by Arthur Nikisch conducting the underwater sea scene from Rimsky’s Sadko, with soloists and chorus, and Glazunov conducting his orchestral suite, In the Middle Ages.

In May of the following year, also thanks to Diaghilev, the Paris Opera presented its first full Boris Godunov in a not quite complete performance, omitting the Inn Scene. Chaliapin and Smirnov starred as the Czar and the Pretender, while Natalya Ermolenko-Yuzhina sang Marina; Petrenko the Nurse; Kastorsky, Pimen; Vasily Sharonov, Varlaam; and Ivan Alchevsky sang Shuisky. Félix Blumenfeld conducted, and the chorus was that of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The seven performances were an unqualified triumph. The premiere, on 19 May, was graced by the presence of Armand Fallières, the President of the Republic, as well as Georges Clemenceau, four grand dukes, and among many others, famous singers including one of the Reszke brothers. The performance was marred by a lighting problem at the end of Act 2 that greatly upset Chaliapin but nobody appeared to notice, at least according to the critic of the journal Comœdia. Reviewing the second performance, the same critic, Louis Vuillemin, wrote: “The impression Boris Godunov makes on one is unique; it seems to be that it can be numbered among the deepest one could possibly feel.” And, reviewing yet another performance a few days later: “There is in the work a barbaric, primitive slice of life, of a staggering realism in its minutest details.”

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, on 22 May 1908, the Opéra-Comique gave the French premiere of Rimsky’s The Snow Maiden (under the title Snegourotchka ou La fleur de neige), with Marguerite Carré in the title role and Léon Beyle as the Csar; the conductor was François Ruhlmann and the dancers were guest performers from Russia. The 15 performances were well received, but the production was not revived.

Russian Opera was at the outset part of the Ballets russes seasons held at the Théâtre du Châtelet beginning in 1909. One of the highlights of the first season was the Polovetsian Act of Prince Igor, sung by Petrenko, Smirnov, and Sharonov. Chaliapin appeared in Rimsky’s La Pskovitaine (Ivan the Terrible), for its first hearing outside Russia, with Lydia Lipkovskaya as the heroine. Act 1 of Ruslan and Lyudmila was also heard again, as was the Orgy tableau from Alexander Serov’s Judith, with Chaliapin as Holophernes.

Despite Diaghilev’s hope to present a complete Sadko in Paris, the second, third, and fourth Ballets russes seasons included no opera. The void was partially filled with the French premieres of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades as well as Rimsky’s The Tsar’s Bride at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt by the visiting Bolshoi Company in May 1911. Apart from the last two scenes from Act 1 of Eugene Onegin staged in 1915 at the Opéra, in French, with Yvonne Gall as Tatyana, Louis Lestelly as Onegin, and Ketty Lapeyrette as Filipyevna, under Chevillard, Onegin was not heard in Paris until the Opéra-Comique mounted it in 1955, with Geori Boué as Tatyana and her husband Roger Bourdin in the title role.

In 1913, the same year as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Diaghilev presented Boris Godunov complete with the Inn Scene, with Chaliapin in the title role, and Emil Cooper conducting. Also that season, Khovanshchina received its first complete performance in the West at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. In the spring of 1914, the Ballets russes sponsored the Paris premiere of Rimsky’s Le coq d’or at the Paris Opera, in a production designed by Natalia Goncharova. Pierre Monteux conducted a cast led by Vasily Petrov as King Dodon, Ivan Alchevsky as the Astrologer, and Avrelya Dobrovolskaya as the Queen of Shemakha, with Tamara Karsavina starring in the dances. Once again, the chorus was imported from the Bolshoi. On 26 May, two days after the premiere of Le coq d’or, came that of Stravinsky’s Le rossignol, also led by Monteux, with a cast led by Dobrovolskaya in the title role, Petrenko as Death, and Nikolai Andryev as the Emperor.

While many Russian artists and singers chose France when they went into exile following the Bolshevist takeover of 1917—Paris, along with Berlin, becoming one of the capitals of the Russian emigration—Parisians, in turn, began to mount indigenous productions of Russian opera. The trend had actually begun before the war, not in Paris, but in Lyons. There in 1913, the first French language Boris Godunov was mounted with the French bass Jean Aquistapace in the title role. Later that season, Paris saw its first French Boris (excluding the Polish Act) in a concert performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, with Eugenio Giraldoni as Boris, and Henri Albers as Pimen, conducted by Gustav Inghelbrecht. Not until March 1922 was the work staged at the Opéra, in French, with Vanni-Marcoux in the title role and a splendid supporting cast: Germaine Lubin as Marina, the Irish tenor John O’Sullivan (perhaps best remembered today as having had his greatest supporter in James Joyce) as Dimitri, Albert Huberty as Varlaam, André Gresse as Pimen, and Ketty Lapeyrette as the Innkeeper. The renowned Serge Koussevitzky was in the pit. The production was regularly revived until the Second World War, and by 1944, it had received 131 performances (124 in French). For the 1937 revival, the Rangoni tableau of the Polish Act was added for the first time, with José Beckmans as the Jesuit. A new staging by Vanni-Marcoux, with Huc-Santana as Boris, was introduced in 1949.

After Boris, the next Russian opera to be heard at the Palais Garnier was Rimsky’s Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, given in concert form in July 1926, with Emil Cooper conducting. The cast included Xenia Derzhinskaya as Fevronia and Kapiton Zaporozhetz as Prince Yuri, with an amateur chorus evidently comprising Russian émigrés.

Diaghilev’s involvement in Russian opera in Paris continued after the First World War. In May 1922, he spearheaded the premiere of Stravinsky’s Mavra at the Paris Opera, in a production by Bronislava Nijinska, with Gregor Fitelberg conducting. The sets and costumes, initially commissioned from Bakst—before he broke with Diaghilev—were realized at the last minute by the young Russian painter Leopold Survage. The seven performances, preceded by a concert version at the Hôtel Intercontinental, were not a success. Diaghilev was luckier with Stravinsky’s Œdipus Rex, premiered four years later, in May 1927, at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, with a cast that included Stepan Belina-Skupevsky and Helen Sadoven (both of whom had also sung in Mavra), as well as Giorgio Lanskoy, Zaporozhetz, and Pierre Brasseur as the Narrator, with Stravinsky himself conducting. To the composer’s annoyance, however, the work was given in concert version.

The flag of Russian opera was also carried in Paris by two specialized independent companies which operated between 1926 and 1940, when World War II interrupted their activities, forcing many Russian exiles into a new exile. The first, called “Opéra russe de Paris,” was founded by the conductor Cyrille Slaviansky d’Agreneff. Comprising a chorus and ballet, and using, at different times, the Colonne, Lamoureux, and Pasdeloup orchestras as well as the Orchestre symphonique de Paris, it gave its first season at the Salle Gaveau in June, September, and December 1926. The spring of 1927 in Paris was, in fact, a Russian opera festival without the name. Shortly before the previously mentioned premiere of Stravinsky’s Œdipus Rex, the Opéra russe de Paris presented a complete concert performance of Rimsky’s Sadko at the Opéra, On 27 April 1927, with the Colonne Orchestra conducted by Slaviansky d’Agreneff. On 12 May, the Paris Opera premiered Rimsky’s Le coq d’or, in a French translation by Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, with the production being designed by Alexandre Benois. Alexander Tcherepnin conducted a fine cast led by Gabrielle Ritter-Ciampi as the Queen of Shemakha, Albert Huberty as King Dodon, and Edmond Rambaud as the Astrologer. The work was frequently revived until 1947. In 1932 Eidé Norena sang the Queen, while the 1936 revival, again with Ritter-Ciampi and Huberty, was conducted by Paul Paray.

The Opéra russe de Paris held concert and stage performances at other venues besides the Opéra: the Salle Pleyel, the Palais du Trocadéro, the Gaîté-Lyrique, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. At the Opéra-Comique, Opéra russe de Paris staged two performances of Khovanshchina in June 1930, in a production by Vladimir Karavia. The company also mounted four performances of Rimsky’s Kitezh in March 1935, directed by the tenor Georges Pozemkovsky, who also sang Kuterma. Sandra Yakovleva (aunt of the Franco-American writer Francine Du Plessix Gray) appeared as Fevronia, Zaporozhetz as Prince Yuri, and Konstantin Kaidanov as Bedyay. The company’s activities were not limited to Paris. In 1930, they toured the French provinces (Bordeaux, Marseilles, Nice, and Toulouse) and gave performances in Geneva, and at the Liège International Exhibition. They performed in Antwerp, Italy, Spain, and Portugal in 1931, and Brussels in 1932. Other operas they performed included Boris and Snegurochka.

Another Franco-Russian company, first called “Opéra privé de Paris,” was founded in 1928 by the famous soprano Maria Kuznetsova (or Marie Kouznezoff, as she appeared in France) and Alfred Massenet, whom she had just married (he was the nephew of the composer, whose operas Roma and Cléopâtre Kuznetsova had premiered before the war). Its director was an émigré Georgian aristocrat, Prince Akaki Zereteli. For its first season, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in January-February 1929, the company presented Prince Igor, with Kuznetsova and Rogovskaya alternating as Yaroslava, and Yuri Iureniev as Igor; the French premiere of Rimsky’s Tsar Saltan, with Kaidanov in the title role and Xenia Rogovskaya as the Tsarina; Snegurochka, with Kuznetsova in the title role; and Kitezh, also starring Kuznetsova as Fevronia. Emil Cooper conducted the Walter Straram Orchestra. The company was reorganized in 1930 under the leadership of Colonel Wassili de Basil, a former officer in the imperial army. At the risk of causing a confusion with the rival company, he gave it the new name of “Opéra russe à Paris.” Colonel de Basil left the company in 1932 to found the Ballets russes de Monte Carlo, taking with him a number of dancers from the troupe, as well as its choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska, sister of Diaghilev’s star male dancer. Michel Kachouk succeeded the Colonel as director, assisted by Fyodor Chaliapin. Prince Zereteli returned briefly to the company’s helm before it disbanded in 1941. It briefly reconstituted itself, as “Opéra russe,” or “Grand opéra russe,” in 1945, under the leadership of Boris Borisoff. It was with the Opéra russe à Paris that Chaliapin made some of his last appearances: as the Miller in Dargomizhky’s Rusalka at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in the winter of 1930–1931, with Ermolenko-Yuzhina as Natasha and Smirnov as the Prince; as Salieri in Rimsky’s Mozart and Salieri, which received three performances at the Opéra-Comique in 1932; as Boris, at the Champs-Élysées in 1931 and at the Opéra-Comique in 1932; as both Galitzky and Konchak in Igor on the same evening, at the Opéra-Comique in 1932 and at the Châtelet the following year (under Anatole Fistoulari). Like its rival, the Opéra russe à Paris went on tour, performing in the provinces and abroad. In 1931 they performed at the London Lyceum, under the patronage of Sir Thomas Beecham. They also appeared in Monaco, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Brussels. Other works in its repertory included Sadko, which they performed in Paris in 1930, with Yakovleva as Volkhova and Pozemkovsky in the title role; Ruslan and Lyudmila, in which Lipkovskaya appeared as Lyudmila; and The Queen of Spades, one of their last productions, in 1940. Their final season during the war took place at the Gaîté-Lyrique in 1941 with performances of Boris, with the veteran Sadoven as Marina, and Kuznetsova as co-director with Alexander Sanin. Thus was the torch of Russian opera, so brilliantly lit by Diaghilev in 1907, carried on in Paris, often under difficult circumstances, both by native French singers and by brave and resilient artists in exile.

© Vincent Giroud, 2010

Though all the recorded extracts on this anthology are of Russian music, none is sung in Russian. They date from the period when it was unthinkable, in France or Belgium at least, for native performers to sing opera or even songs in a language other than that of the audience. Only visiting artists, such as the Russian singers whom Diaghilev brought to Paris before the First World War, or specialized companies, such as the two Opéra russe troupes, sang Russian opera and songs in the original.

The French translation of Boris Godunov by Michel Delines (born Mihail Osipovich Ashkenazi, in Odessa) and Louis Laloy was first heard in Lyons in 1913, with Aquistapace in the title role. When Vanni-Marcoux sang it at the Opéra in 1922, he was, so to speak, the French Chaliapin, sharing with the Russian bass an innate gift for vocal acting. (The two had been in competition in Massenet’s Don Quichotte, premiered by Chaliapin at Monte Carlo and by Vanni-Marcoux, ten months later, in Paris at the Gaîté-Lyrique.) In Vanni-Marcoux’s recording of the Coronation Scene (Track 1), there is no doubt we hear a French voice—clear in color, with an appealing nasal timbre that sounds uncannily at times like Georges Thill. Marcoux’s haunting head tones (another common trait with Chaliapin) and marvelous diction are also in evidence. With its finely controlled portamenti and just the hint of a sob, this is an utterly dignified portrayal. Aquistapace, heard here in the Death Scene, complete with Fyodor and chorus—but missing the final, hushed exclamation—is almost his match in terms of diction, with a resonant voice and similarly nasal timbre (Track 5). Their contemporary Albert Huberty, who sang Pimen to their Borises in 1922 before succeeding them in the title role in 1925, is heard here as Varlaam, which he sang in 1930 and 1937 (Track 2). If slightly less well captured by the microphone, he shows himself a nimble and expressive singer. Fred Bordon, Pimen at the Opéra in 1930, never sang Boris at the Palais Garnier, though he may well have in the French provinces. In the Chamber Scene monologue, he is in turn authoritative and moving (Track 3). André Pernet, Boris in the 1930 revival, is considered to be Vanni-Marcoux’s successor as the great French bass of his generation. Like him, Pernet was also a particularly fine Don Quichotte. His fascinating account of the Clock Scene shows how the inescapable model of Chaliapin could be replicated by a non-Russian singer (Track 4).

Tchaikovsky’s operas took a surprisingly long time to achieve popularity in France. Although Eugene Onegin had been first heard in France as early as 1895 in Nice, only a few recordings were made of Tchaikovsky‚s operatic arias sung in French. Pauline’s aria from Pique Dame was an unusual choice since it was not a commonly recorded aria even in Russian. Livine Mertens’s recording is firm-toned and subtle, with her timbre captured beautifully by French Columbia (Track 6). The extracts from Prince Igor are both from the Polovtsian Act, popularized by the Ballets russes before the Opéra russe de Paris staged it complete in 1929. D’Arkor, as always, is a miracle of elegance in Vladimir’s aria, with immaculate legato and limpid head tones (Track 7). The relatively little-known Nougaro also acquits himself well as Igor, with a firm, evenly produced baritone and incisive diction (Track 8).

Rimsky’s May Night was an unusual choice of repertoire for Charles Friant to record, since it had not been staged in France. With his quick vibrato and nasal timbre, he almost sounds like the Russian tenor Ivan Kozlovsky. In Levko’s Act 3 aria, Friant gives an appealing performance with grace notes included (Track 9). Ninon Vallin was not the original Lel when The Snow Maiden was staged at the Opéra-Comique in 1908 (the part was then sung by Suzanne Brohly). In Vallin’s recording of the shepherd’s Act 3 song she displays her customary charm and vivacity (Track 10). While Vallin recorded more Russian music than any other singer featured in this anthology, Georges Thill has left us only the song of the Hindu Guest from Sadko, a classic, atmospheric rendering with soft attacks and superb use of the mixed register, and of course the immaculate diction always evident in his singing (Track 11). Eidé Norena’s recording of the Queen’s aria from Rimsky’s Le coq d’or was made two years before she sang the part at the Opéra’s 1932 revival. While the diction is not the clearest, the intonation and tonal purity cannot be faulted (Track 12).

Issued under the somewhat unusual title “Les haleurs de la Volga,” this 1932 recording by the little-known François Audiger, with chorus, testifies to the popularity of the song, generally known in France as “Les bateliers de la Volga” (Track 13). Musorgsky’s Pesnia Mefistofelia, known in English as “the Song of the Flea”, is almost never heard sung by any voice but a baritone or bass. Chaliapin made four recordings of it, and there are well-known renditions by Kastorsky, Sibiriakov, Reizen, and Christoff. Perhaps the only Russian tenor to have recorded it during the 20s or 30s is Vladimir Rosing who made two recordings, both in Russian. Here, it is sung with gusto by tenor, Georges Jouatte, with orchestral accompaniment (Track 14). Balakirev’s Georgian Song, with words by Pushkin (better known in Rachmaninoff’s later setting), receives a poetic account by Ninon Vallin in this translation by M.D. Calvocoressi, Balakirev himself having orchestrated this song in the 1860s (Track 15). Rubinstein’s “Extase” is the ninth of his twelve Persian Songs, opus 34, of 1854. Charles Soix’s sensitive performance with piano is in the French version by the music critic Victor Wilder, who also realized the first French translation of Wagner’s Ring (Track 16). The Tchaikovsky song, known in English as “None but the lonely heart” (“tolko tot”) is a setting of Mignon’s song “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister; it is the last of the Russian composer’s Six Romances, opus 6. Souzay’s early recording, issued in 1949, is accompanied by the distinguished pianist and coach Irène Aïtoff, herself of Russian origin, who died in 2006 at the age of 102 (Track 17). “La rose et le rossignol,” which the young Renée Doria sings with beautiful, haunting tones, with piano accompaniment by Tasso Janopoulo and an uncredited flutist, is Rimsky-Korsakov’s Eastern Song, opus 2 no. 2, on words by Aleksei Koltsov (Track 18). This anthology concludes with two of Rachmaninoff’s best-known songs. The familiar “Siren,” known in English as “Lilacs,” is here sung in a limpid and perhaps understated reading by Germaine Cernay, opera star and concert singer of the 1920s and 30s (Track 19). “Uzh ti, niva moia”, in English “Harvest of Sorrow,” Rachmaninoff’s setting of a poem by Aleksei Tolstoy, cousin of the more famous Count Leo Tolstoy, is sung in an impassioned and lovely rendition by the Belgian dramatic soprano, Claudine Boons, with orchestral accompaniment (Track 20).

© Vincent Giroud, 2010