Vladimir Grishko

Russian Opera Arias, Vol. 2

The nineteenth century saw the flowering of Russian nationalism in the arts, above all in opera, where composers could explore essentially Russian subject matter together with music that had its roots in national tradition. Among the group of five contemporary nationalist composers, described by their mentor, the polymath Vladimir Stasov as the Mighty Handful, Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov eventually assumed a leading position, using his gradually acquired technical knowledge both in his own music and in the revision of works by his colleagues Mussorgsky and Borodin, after their relatively early deaths.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s sixth opera, Sadko, was completed in 1896 and first staged in Moscow two years