Russian Arias, Vol. 1

One of the opera-world’s most exciting young voices presents a glorious recital, encompassing popular and lesser-known tenor arias.

Sergej Larin, one of the leading Russian tenors of our day, presents this recital of his native repertoire, with a selection which ranges from the popular Eugene Onegin to less well-known arias from Sadko and May Night.

Recital discs of this kind with the luxury of a full chorus and orchestra, are comparatively rare. Needles to say, the Phlharmonia Orchesta and the versatile Ambrosian Opera Chorus (as heard on literally hundreds of opera CDs) perform vividly under the baton of the legendary Gennady Rozhdestvensky.

It is not surprising that many composers drew on Russia’s highly colourful folk-legends as inspiration for operas. It was Glinka who first set these fantastic fairy stories with Ruslan and Lyudmila in 1842, and he also set another precedent. Although the here was usually assigned to the bass or baritone voice, the role for the tenor was frequently given to, for example, a young lover, or secondary roles (in Ruslan, the tenors take the roles of the Finnish Magician and the Bard). Although the Russian tenor tradition was to encompass powerful dramatic roles, lyricism remained at its centre. It was Tchaikovsky who was able to write some of the most yearningly lyrical passages for the tenor voice, of which the four operas on this disc serve as fine examples. If any composer was able to conjure up magical and exotic images then it was Rimsky-Korsakov; his striking orchestral palette - which was an inspiration for may composers - was used to great effect in the two ’magical’ operas on this album. May Night an Sadko, which give the tenor a chance to sing folk, love and heroic songs. Borodincombines historical epic and exoticism in Prince Igor, from which we hear Vladimir’s tender love song. Boris Godunov is an early but effective work by Rachmaninov, and consists of two monologues after Puskins dramatic poem, and deserves to be better known.