As promised, Chris’s Cache continues its Russian cycle with two epics–Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina and Borodin’s Prince Igor—each from early Seventies La Scala with starry casts that embrace Irina Arkhipova and Nicolai Ghiaurov performing the previous work in Italian, and Bolshoi regulars Tamara Milashkina, Vladimir Atlantov, and Yevgeni Nesterenko within the latter.

Final month, I attended a thrilling efficiency of the Mussorgsky work on the Berlin Staatsoper. It jogged my memory how a lot I just like the opera and like it to the composer’s extra incessantly carried out masterpiece Boris Godunov. I admit I discovered Khovanshchina complicated after I first noticed it on the Met’s new manufacturing in 1985, pre-MetTitles, however the effective solid, which included Helga Dernesch (in her very belated firm debut), Wieslaw Ochman, Aage Haugland, and Martti Talvela nonetheless made it memorable.

It’s been over twelve years because it was completed on the Met, a very glorious revival of the corporate’s now decades-old manufacturing with Olga Borodina (great as Marfa) and Ildar Abdrazakov, fantastically led by Kirill Petrenko in his final Met performances so far.

Not so many stay primetime Bolshoi Opera performances have been recorded, however when the corporate went on tour it all the time introduced its easiest singers, and sometimes pirates have been there to seize them, as is the case with at this time’s 1973 go to to La Scala.

Igor, too, has been lacking from the Met since its was revived in 2014 in a manufacturing by Dmitri Tcherniakov additionally starring Abdrazakov of whom we’ve possible seen the final right here within the US.

One other Khovanshchina with Christa Ludwig, Ochman, Ghiaurov, Talvela, and Bernd Weikl could be discovered right here.

Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina (in Italian)

Marfa: Irina Arkhipova
Emma: Rita Talarico
Susanna: Clara Petrella
Andrei Khovansky: Giorgio Merighi
Ivan Khovansky: Nicolai Ghiaurov
Dosifei: Paolo Washington
Golitsin: Giampaolo Corradi
Shaklovity: Lorenzo Saccomani
Scribe: Piero de Palma

Conductor: Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Teatro alla Scala
25 January 1971
Broadcast

Borodin: Prince Igor

Yaroslavna: Tamara Milashkina
Konchakovna: Tamara Sinyavskaya
Polovtsian Lady: Makvala Kasrashvili
Yaroslavna’s Nanny: Nina Grigorieva
Vladimir Igorevich: Vladimir Atlantov
Vladimir Yaroslavich: Arthur Eisen
Konchak: Alexander Vedernikov
Prince Igor: Evgeny Nesterenko
Ovlur: Vitaly Vlasov
Skula: Valery Yaroslavtsev
Eroshka: Konstantin Baskov

Conductor: Yuri Simono
Bolshoi Opera on tour to La Scala
1 November 1973
In-house

Every nice Russian work could be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio participant above and the ensuing mp3 file will seem in your obtain listing.

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