Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia. The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia (fragment)
88. THE TALE OF THE INVISIBLE CITY OF KITEZH
In the Trans-Volga forests there is a lake called Svetloyar.
The lake is small, but its depth is up to thirty meters, and the water level is always the same, whether in the summer or during the spring flood. In winter, special “lace” ice freezes on the lake. Svetloyarsk water is unusually clean, transparent and has healing properties. Local residents say: “Drink water directly from the lake - don’t be afraid, take it home - it will last for months without spoiling.”
MM. Prishvin, having visited Svetloyar, wrote in the essay “Bright Lake”: “... a calm, clear eye looked at me from the forest. The bright lake is a bowl of holy water in a green jagged frame."
Here, on the shore of Lake Svetloyar, a legend arose about the invisible city of Kitezh.
The legend says that in ancient times Grand Duke Georgy Vsevolodovich built the city of Maly Kitezh or Gorodets on the banks of the Volga, and then, having crossed the rivers Uzola, Sanda and Kerzhenets, he came to the Lyudna River, originating from Lake Svetloyar.
The places there were beautiful, inhabited, and the prince, “at the request of the residents,” built the city of Kitezh the Great on the banks of Svetloyar, but he did not stay in it, but returned to Small Kitezh.
At this time, “like dark clouds in the sky,” hordes of Tatar-Mongols under the leadership of Batu Khan moved to Rus'. The enemies approached Maly Kitezh and took the city by storm, killing almost all of its defenders.
Prince Georgy Vsevolodovich with the remnants of the army managed to hide in the forests. He went along secret paths to Kitezh the Great to gather new forces there.
Batu could not find traces of the prince and began to “torment” the captive residents of Small Kitezh, wanting to find out the path along which the prince left. One of the prisoners “could not bear the torment” and led Batu through the forest to Great Kitezh.
The Tatars besieged the city, but suddenly, by God's permission, Kitezh became invisible.
Frightened by the miracle that had happened, the enemies fled.
People tell different stories about how exactly the Lord saved Kitezh from enemies.
Some say that the city still stands in its place, but no one sees it, others say that the city has disappeared under the high hills surrounding Svetloyar. Writer V.G. Korolenko, who visited Svetloyar at the end of the 19th century, wrote down the following story from a local old fisherman: “(...) ours, brother, is not a simple place... No-no... Not simple... It seems to you: a lake, a swamp, mountains... And the creature here is completely other. On these mountains (he pointed to the hills), they say there will be churches. This is where the chapel - the cathedral of the Most Pure Savior stands. And nearby, on another hill, is the Annunciation. Here in the old days there was a birch tree, so it turns out, on the church dome.”
According to the third version, the city, together with its inhabitants, sank to the bottom of Lake Svetloyar. People still live in it, and sometimes the ringing of Kitezh bells can be heard from under the water.
The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh for a long time existed in oral form, passed down from generation to generation.
In the 17th century, schismatic monasteries began to appear in the forests of the Trans-Volga region - secret settlements of adherents of the “old faith”, not recognized by the official church. It was the schismatics in the 18th century who first recorded the legend of Kitezh in the work “The Book of the Chronicler.”
As presented by the schismatics, the legend acquired a pronounced religious character. In their minds, the underwater city is a monastery in which they live righteous elders, and only people who are true believers can see Kitezh and hear the bells of Kitezh.
Over time, Lake Svetloyar became a place of pilgrimage for believers. V.G. Korolenko said: “Crowds of people converge on the shore of Svetloyar, striving for at least short time shake off the deceptive vanity of vanity and look beyond the mysterious edges. Here, in the shade of the trees, under open air day and night you can hear singing, the sound of (...) chanting, and debates about the true faith are raging. And at sunset and in the blue darkness of a summer evening, lights flicker between the trees, along the banks and on the water. Pious people crawl on their knees three times around the lake, then let the remains of candles fall onto the water on chips, and crouch to the ground and listen. Tired, between two worlds, with lights in the sky and on the water, they give themselves up to the lulling swaying of the shores and the indistinct distant ringing... And sometimes they freeze, no longer seeing or hearing anything from their surroundings. The eyes seem to have gone blind for our world, but they have received their sight for the otherworldly world. The face has cleared up, there is a “blessed” wandering smile on it and - tears... And those who strived, but were not rewarded due to lack of faith, stand around and look in surprise... And they shake their heads in fear. This means that it exists, this other world, invisible, but real. We didn’t see it ourselves, but we saw those who saw it..."
Belief in the real existence of the invisible city persisted in the vicinity of Svetloyar in later times. In 1982, folklorists recorded the story of a local resident: “People say that somewhere in the middle of the lake there is a hole - not very big - well, it looks like it will be the size of a ladle. It's just very difficult to find. In winter, the ice on Svetloyar is pure, pure. So you need to come, shovel the snow, and you can see what’s going on there at the bottom. And there, they say, there are all sorts of miracles: white stone houses stand, trees grow, bell towers, churches, chopped towers, living people walk... But not everyone will see it, not everyone will be able to find this hole.”
At the end of the 1930s, the following story was recorded from a certain old man Markelov. There lived in their village “a man who was so brave.” This brave man became interested in the hole he discovered under the roots of a fallen birch tree - and climbed into it. “He climbed and climbed, then he saw a bright place, and in that place the bright-faced elders were sitting and sorting out the affairs of the peasants. And he recognized his grandfather, and his grandfather threatened him with a stick and did not order him to climb any more.”
Another local resident in 1982 told from the words of his father how he “was in the city of Kitizh - they fed him there and gave him money.” The narrator’s father “went as a carriage driver,” and then one day he was contracted to carry sacks of grain with a convoy. “And the convoy set off. As soon as we reached the road, it got dark. I don’t know how many hours they drove and where they were going, they just saw a plank gate. Kind of like a monastery. They are moving in. It’s dark there, there are some houses standing there. While the convoy was being unloaded, everyone was taken into the house, fed, given money - and generously. And before dawn the gates were opened, and the convoy, already empty, drove back... Where were they at night? (...) While they were judging, they turned around and there were no gates.”
Stories about how Kitezh residents bought bread from peasants are taken for granted by local residents. One narrator clarifies: “The Kitezh elders bought bread from the Vyatka people.” Another cites the case of “one Vyatichi” who “brought rye from his Vyatka region to the market in the village of Voskresenskoye to sell. And so (...) a gray-haired old man came up to him, looked at the grain, tasted it and said: “I’ll buy the whole carload of rye from you (...). I just ask you, good man, to take the loaf of bread to us in Vladimirskoye. I’ll give you an extra fee for each bag for this.” Vyatich agreed. Near Vladimirskoye (the nearest village from Svetloyar) he saw a monastery. The monks met him and helped him pour the grain into the barn. Having received the payment, Vyatich went back. “I drove some distance from the lake, stopped and wanted to pray to the monastery for good luck with the sale. I looked back and the monastery was not there.” (Recorded in 1974.)
Local residents, according to them, know of cases when Kitezh residents helped people in the most ordinary matters. “I remember, when I was still a little boy, my grandmother told me that there was an old man who lived here in a village by the lake - in Vladimirskoye or Shadrin, or something. So, that old man once went into the forest to pick mushrooms. (...) I walked and walked, and all to no avail - not a single mushroom! The old man was exhausted and tired. And so he sat down on a tree stump; he wanted to rest. (...) It’s a shame for him that he went around a lot, but there was no collection. Then he thought something: “If only the old people of Kitezh would help.” Before he had time to think, he fell asleep. (...) After some time, the old man woke up, opened his eyes, looked into the basket - and couldn’t believe his eyes: it was filled to the brim with mushrooms. And what kind of ones - one to one, and all white! The legend of Kitezh is often compared to the legend of Atlantis. The historicity of the invisible city (as well as Atlantis) has been repeatedly tried to prove or disprove.
Since the middle of the 19th century, the legend of Kitezh has become the object of research. It aroused interest among a variety of specialists - folklorists, literary scholars, historians, archaeologists. Scientific expeditions have been sent to Svetloyar more than once. In the 50-70s of the 20th century, it was established that Lake Svetloyar was formed as a result of a “failure” - a sudden, strong shift of the soil, and this happened approximately at the time to which legend attributes the disappearance of Kitezh. At the bottom of the lake, a certain “anomaly” was discovered - a half-meter layer of semi-liquid rock, in which there were numerous fragments of wood. The examination showed that these fragments “have traces of cutting tools,” that is, they were processed by human hands.
The poetic image of the city of Kitezh inspired many poets, artists, and composers. Maximilian Voloshin, Nikolai Klyuev, Sergei Gorodetsky wrote about Kitezh. N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the famous opera “The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia”, N.K. Roerich created a picturesque panel curtain for this opera - “The Battle of Kerzhenets”.
The legend of the city of Kitezh - miraculously saved by God from destruction by enemies, sheltered and preserved until better times, when it will again appear to the world, preserving its ancient roots, ancient faith and truth - is one of the most cherished legends of the Russian people, who for centuries have been subjected to invasions by external enemies.
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From the author's bookThe Legend of the City of Kitezh Kitezh is a mythical wonderful city, which, according to Russian legends, escaped from the troops of Batu in the 13th century due to the fact that it sank to the bottom of Lake Svetloyar. Old Believers described Kitezh as a refuge for followers of the old faith. And the mystics of the 19th century
In 1907, the opera by N.A. appeared. Rimsky-Korsakov "The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia."
One of the main characters of the opera is the maiden Fevronia, the personification of purity and innocence, carrying the secret Russian folk worldview, incomprehensible to foreign sages for centuries. Fevronia is shown as a person who is above the rituals of official Orthodoxy and carries within herself a direct living religion (a two-way, vitally meaningful connection between man and God) in the inescapable unity of the emotional and semantic structure of her psyche. She - the only person throughout the opera, possessing this quality, which is expressed in the fact that its actions in all circumstances are unmistakable, i.e. do not aggravate problems, but solve them.
Another main character, Vsevolod Yurievich, is state power. Vsevolod – All-VOLOD Who works. Yuryevich - named after the founder of Moscow Yuri Dolgoruky. He doesn't understand anything, he hunts a bear, i.e. on the Russian peasant, according to the allegorical tradition that has developed throughout the world. Kitezh appears as a multi-level allegorical interconnection of concepts. On the one hand, the capital of the power, which has the full control function. On the other hand, there are two Kitezhes: Small and Great.
Small Kitezh is captured by the enemy, but Great Kitezh is not visible to the enemy. Apparently only a reflection of its beauty and grandeur in the mirror purity of the lake. Small Kitezh - public consciousness, littered and desecrated by the biblical aggressor; Great Kitezh is an ideal of the level of the Russian public “subconscious”, which has preserved its integrity and purity. It is hidden by fog with a golden sheen from everyone who has lost the integrity of their worldview, but the reflection of its objective presence in life is apparently real in the surrounding reality. In the end, statehood - Vsevolod - is united with the people's worldview - Fevronia. The golden biblical fog dissipates and reveals the Great Kitezh - both the capital and the Russian public subconscious, which embodied its ideals in life.
To the prince’s question: “You are a beautiful fairy tale maiden,” Do you go to the Church of God to pray?” — Fevronia answers:
Prince Vsevolod:
Tell me, pretty girl,
Do you go to pray in the Church of God?
Fevronia:
No, I have a long way to go, my dear...
And even then: isn’t God everywhere?
You're thinking: there's empty space here,
But no - the church here is great, -
Look around with smart eyes...
Day and night we have Sunday service,
Day and night there is thyme and incense;
During the day the sun shines for us, the sun is clear,
At night the stars, like candles, will glow.
Day and night we sing sweetly,
What a rejoicing to all the voices, -
Birds, animals, all kinds of breath
They sing about the beautiful light of the Lord.
“Glory to you forever, the sky is bright,
The high throne is wonderful to God the Lord!
The same glory to you, mother earth,
You are a strong footstool for God!”
Prince Vsevolod:
Oh, you beautiful maiden!
Your simple speeches are marvelous to me,
All about joy, fun red.
Old people say differently:
“Do not set your sights on earthly joys,
On earth we must grieve and cry.”
And I would like to go into the desert completely, -
Eh, but youth is a hindrance:
Asks for some good fun.
Fevronia:
(very affectionately and sincerely,
taking his hand and looking into his eyes).
Darling, how can you live without joy?
To be without the fun of red?
Look: all the birds are playing,
The prowling beast is having fun and jumping.
Believe me, it’s not the saved tear,
What flows from melancholy,
Only that saved tear
What from God's joy dews,
And my dear, don’t be afraid of my sin:
We love everyone as he is,
A serious sinner, is he a righteous man?
The beauty of the Lord is in every soul.
Everyone who shot himself was sent by God;
He is in grief, so we need him even more.
Caress me, although I was a villain,
Rejoice with heavenly joy,
(carried away by thought).
And the unprecedented will come true:
Everything will be decorated with beauty,
The earth will flourish like a wondrous garden,
And the trees of paradise will bloom.
Wonderful birds will fly here -
Birds of joy, birds of mercy, -
They will sing in the trees with the voice of angels,
And from the holy heavens there is a crimson ringing,
From behind the clouds an unspeakable light...
In the above dialogue, the official church worldview was expressed through Prince Vsevolod, and through Fevronia, a person’s living, non-ritual faith in God according to conscience. Thanks to the open expression of both positions, the opera acquired special significance in Russian culture and turned out to be significant in the history of Russia. But the Russian “ruling” class - the main consumer of opera - then (in 1907) turned out to be arrogantly stupid and considered the opera after its first productions to be “sluggish”, “overly serious in content”, “coldly rational” or “unctuously mystical” “,” “not strict enough towards the traitor Grishka Kuterma” (quotes from reviews of that time).
Let us briefly explain what Fevronia said.
From the point of view of theology, according to the conscience of Russian civilization, everyone in this world, without exception, in their essence, is the messenger of the Almighty to those around them, righteous in some ways, sincerely mistaken in some ways, and in some ways, perhaps, hypocritical or out of greed , or out of fear. As a result of this, God never chooses anyone so that only the one He has chosen will broadcast the truth to everyone else to whom God allegedly denied His direct appeal to them. God does not refuse anyone, but not everyone who grew up outside a righteous culture is able to accept and convey His appeal to others. But, having not received a righteous upbringing in a culture of humanity that has not yet matured, many, under the influence of the oppression of a cultural environment that cultivates in their psyches all kinds of fears, prejudices and inferiority, under the influence of heterogeneous attachments, themselves evade the hidden (from others) appeals of God to them directly through their conscience; they do not heed God’s indirect appeals to them through other people, through cultural monuments and life circumstances.
Therefore, in the ongoing historical era, for some (and such is the overwhelming majority), the mission of God’s viceroy and His envoy to other people is distorted beyond recognition, while others were able to fulfill it more or less successfully, giving direction to the flow of local events and the global historical process for many centuries (such a few , and humanity remembers some of them as prophets - monopolists on the announcement of the truth; and many of them themselves were sincerely convinced of their exceptional significance). But God owns eternity, and therefore He can wait until the culture of civilization matures to humanity, until everyone is freed from fears, and the kingdom of truth comes due to the fact that everyone will be God’s vicar on Earth without fear, with love and in conscience.
Characters:
| Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich | bass | |
| Knyazhich Vsevolod Yurievich | tenor | |
| Fevronia | soprano | |
| Grishka Kuterma | tenor | |
| Fedor Poyarok | baritone | |
| Youth | mezzo-soprano | |
| Two best people: | 1st | tenor |
| 2nd | bass | |
| Guslyar | bass | |
| Bear | tenor | |
| Beggar singer | baritone | |
| Poor guy | Tatar heroes | bass |
| Burunday | bass | |
| Sirin | birds of paradise | soprano |
| Alkonost | contralto | |
| Princely archers, poezzhans, domrachi, best people, poor brethren, people, Tatars. | ||
|
Summer from the creation of the world 6751. |
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HISTORY OF CREATION
The ancient Russian legend about the city of Kitezh attracted attention as an opera plot in 1898. Then the idea arose to connect her with the image of Fevronia, the heroine of the popular Murom story about Peter and Fevronia. This image took a central place in the libretto of V.I. Belsky (1866-1946). The composer began composing music at the beginning of 1903. By the end of September of the following year, the score of the opera was completed. The first performance took place on February 7 (20), 1907 on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.
“The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” is one of the most significant works of Russian opera classics. It is characterized by a combination of epic and lyric poetry, heroic and fantastic motifs of folk poetry. The plot is based on an ancient Russian legend of the 13th century, the era of Tatar-Mongol rule. Real historical events took on a fantastic coloring in it. According to legend, the city of Kitezh was saved from destruction by the Tatars by “God’s will”: it became invisible and became a place of ideal, according to popular understanding, earthly life.
In working on the libretto, Belsky made extensive use of a variety of motifs from folk poetry. As a result, as the librettist rightly asserted, “in the entire work there is not a single detail that would not in one way or another be inspired by a feature of some legend, poem, plot or other fruit of Russian folk art.”
Before the viewer passes a gallery of bright national types, unprecedentedly new on the opera stage. This is Fevronia - perfect image a Russian woman, faithful and loving, wise and benevolent, modest and selflessly devoted, ready for the feat of self-sacrifice. She is sharply contrasted with the image of Kuterma, stunning in its drama and life truth - a morally broken man, crushed by poverty. In terms of its social and accusatory power, this image has no equal in world operatic literature. Tragic fates The main characters are shown in inseparable connection with the fate of the people, experiencing the difficult times of the Tatar invasion, against the backdrop of pictures of Russian nature, folk life, and the patriotic struggle against a ruthless enemy. In accordance with the content of folk legends, along with the real ones, magical pictures of heavenly nature and the miraculously transformed city of Kitezh appear in the opera.
PLOT
In the deep thicket of the Trans-Volga forests stands Fevronia’s hut. Her days are full of peace, quiet, joyful thoughts. Animals and birds flock to her voice. One day an unfamiliar young man appeared in the clothes of a prince's hunter. The young man was struck by the girl's enthusiastic speeches about the beauty of nature, about the happiness of living under the majestic arches of forests, enjoying the radiance of the sun, the aroma of flowers, the shine of the blue sky. They liked each other and decided to exchange rings. Only The young man had time to set off on his way back when the archer-hunters, led by Fyodor Poyark, appeared, looking for their comrade. From them, Fevronia learned that the unknown young man with whom she had become engaged was Prince Vsevolod, the son of the old Prince Yuri, who ruled in Great Kitezh.
The shopping area of Maly Kitezh is crowded with people, impatiently waiting for the arrival of the bride and groom. A guide with a bear makes the crowd laugh; Guslyar, gray-haired like a harrier, sings an epic. The Kitezh rich are grumbling, dissatisfied with the topic that a simple peasant woman will become a princess. Seeing the drunk Grishka Kuterma, they give him money so that he can get drunk and properly “honor” the bride. The people of Kitezh joyfully greet their mistress. But Grishka Kuterma approaches Fevronia with impudent speeches, mocking her simple origin and poverty. The people drive him away, and at a sign from his friend - Fyodor Poyarka - the girls start a wedding song. Suddenly the song ends. The sound of military horns is heard, and crowds of people run out into the square in confusion, pursued by the Tatars. The Tatars are angry: none of the residents agrees to hand over their prince, to show the way to Great Kitezh. They attack Kuterma with threats, and Hawkmoth cannot stand it: fearing terrible torment, he agrees to lead the Tatar army.
At one of the churches of Great Kitezh, people gathered at midnight to listen to the messenger - Fyodor Poyarka, blinded by his enemies. Those present are shocked by his mournful story about the national disaster and that, according to rumors, Fevronia is leading the Tatars to the Great Kitezh. At the call of old Prince Yuri, the people offer prayers for salvation. Prince Vsevolod asks his father to bless him and his squad for a feat of arms and sets out from Great Kitezh to meet the enemies. As soon as their song died down in the distance, the city was enveloped in a light, golden fog, and the bells themselves began to hum quietly, foreshadowing deliverance.
On a dark, impenetrable night, Grishka led the Tatars, and with them the captive Fevronia, to Lake Svetloyar. But the Tatar warriors do not believe the traitor; They tied him tightly to a tree to wait for the morning, and began to divide the plunder. The Tatars boast of their victory over the Kitezh army and talk about the death of Prince Vsevolod. A dispute broke out between the warriors about who should own the Polonyanka Fevronia. In the heat of a quarrel, Burundai kills his opponent with an ax blow. The division is over, the tipsy Tatars fall asleep. Fevronia cries bitterly for her dead fiancé. Grishka Kuterma calls out to her; him, betrayed to the enemy native land, who slandered Fevronia, is tormented by remorse. In despair, he asks Fevronia to set him free so that he can atone for the grave sin of betrayal. Fevronia felt sorry for the unfortunate hawk moth, and she freed him from his bonds. Grishka wants to run but cannot: the ringing of the bell fills his soul with insurmountable fear. He rushed to the lake to drown himself, and was dumbfounded at the sight of an unprecedented spectacle: the first rays rising sun slid along the surface of the water, illuminated the empty shore of Svetloyar, and below it in the lake - the reflection of the capital city of Great Kitezh. In insane surprise, with a wild cry, Kuterma disappeared into the thicket of the forest. The Tatars also saw the reflection of the invisible city. The mysterious sight filled them with panic. Forgetting about everything, they fled in horror from the terrible place.
In the deep thicket of the Kerzhen forests, through windbreaks and tenacious bushes, Fevronia and Kuterma, who fled from the Tatars, make their way. They are tormented by hunger and fatigue. Unable to withstand the pangs of conscience and terrible visions, Kuterma disappears into the dense thicket. Exhausted Fevronia sinks onto the grass, calling on the deliverer death. Unprecedented flowers bloom around her, candles light up on tree branches, the voices of birds of paradise prophesy peace and happiness to her, and the ghost of Prince Vsevolod approaches from the depths of the clearing. Full of strength again, Fevronia joyfully rushes to meet him, and the young people slowly retreat to Great Kitezh.
In the square of the miraculously transformed city they are met by people in white robes. Intricate towers are illuminated with a bright silvery glow, a lion and a unicorn with silver fur guard the princely mansions, birds of paradise sing, sitting on high spiers. Fevronia looks at the magical city with amazement. To the sounds of heavenly pipes, people sing a wedding song, unsung in Little Kitizh. But Fevronia remembers the unfortunate, crazy Grishka Kuterma, who is not destined to enter the magical Kitezh, and decides to send him a message. Finally, the letter is written, and the young couple, accompanied by solemn singing and ringing of bells, slowly and majestically march into the cathedral to the crown.
MUSIC
“The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” is an opera legend. The slow development of the action, the abundance of broad expressive melodies of a Russian song character give the opera a distinctive national coloring, the flavor of distant hoary antiquity.
The orchestral introduction “In Praise of the Desert” paints a picture of a forest with the rustling of leaves and birdsong; Fevronia's melodies sound here.
The music of the first act is imbued with a bright lyrical mood. Fevronia’s song “Oh, you are the forest, my forest, the beautiful desert” is marked by spiritual purity and serene calm. The big scene of Fevronia with the prince is gradually filled with a jubilant, enthusiastic feeling. A love duet, warm and intimate, completes it. The duet is interrupted by the calling signals of hunting horns and the courageous song of the archers. The act ends with powerful, proud fanfares, symbolizing the image of Great Kitezh.
The second act is a monumental historical fresco painted with a broad brush. Guslyar's mournful epic (a prophecy of a coming disaster) is designed in the style of an ancient epic tale. It is followed by a choir reminiscent of folk lamentations and laments. In a developed scene, a multifaceted characterization of Grishka Kuterma is given. The ringing of bells in the orchestra, joyful exclamations unite in a solemn choir welcoming Fevronia. In the scene of the meeting between Fevronia and Kuterma, her smooth, lyrical, melodious melodies are sharply contrasted with the angular, convulsive speech of the hawk moth. The Tatar invasion marks a sharp turn in the action; right up to the end of the act, the music is dominated by the elements of gloomy colors, threatening, harsh sounds that depict the Tatar invasion.
The third act consists of two scenes, which are connected by a symphonic intermission. The first picture is painted in dark, harsh colors, emphasizing the drama of the events taking place. Poyark’s gloomy, mournful story, interrupted by excited exclamations of the choir, forms a wide scene, saturated with great internal tension. Prince Yuri’s aria “Oh glory, vain wealth!” is permeated with a mood of heavy thought and deep sadness. The heroic song of the squad, which Vsevolod sings, is overshadowed by a premonition of doom. The final episode of the picture is full of mysteriously flickering sounds, the muffled hum of bells and magical numbness.
Symphonic intermission “The Battle of Kerzhenets” - outstanding example Russian program music. The battle between the Tatars and the Russians is depicted here with stunning realism and visual clarity. Having reached the limit of drama, the battle ends; only the echoes of the receding wild race are heard, which was opposed by the now broken beautiful melody of the song of the Kitezh squad. The Tatar choir “Not Hungry Crows” sounds tired and joyless at the beginning of the second picture. Fevronia's lamentations resemble a drawn-out folk song. Melancholy, feverish excitement, passionate prayer, grief, joy, horror - these nervously alternating states convey the terrible mental anguish of Kuterma. Confused choral phrases of the Tatars and a menacing alarm bell complete the third act.
The fourth act also consists of two scenes connected by a vocal-symphonic intermission. The first picture falls into two large sections. In the center of the first is Kuterma. Music with enormous tragic power conveys the acute mental discord of a man losing his mind, the wild visions of his hallucinating fantasy. The next section is devoted to showing the wonderful transformation of nature. The picture ends with a light lyrical duet.
The vocal-symphonic intermission “Walking into the Invisible City” follows without a break; Against the background of a radiant, majestic procession and joyful chimes, the intricate singing of birds of paradise sounds. The music of the second picture creates a motionless panorama of the wonderful city, as if frozen in a fairy-tale charm. Vocal phrases of the characters and choral episodes follow each other smoothly and sedately; their major sound illuminates the music with a soft and even glow. Only the wedding song and the gloomy images that appear in the scene of Fevronia’s letter remind us of past terrible events. The opera ends with an enlightened, long-fading chord.
1 The scene of Fevronia’s letter to Kuterma, according to the tradition of the first productions of the opera, is usually released.
About the opera "The Tale of the City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia" Act IIn the Trans-Volga forests, near Small Kitezh
Fevronia lives in the deep forest. Birds and animals flock to her voice. Suddenly a young man appears, lagging behind the group of hunters and lost in the forest. Seeing the girl surrounded by wild animals, he at first fears that he has met the forest spirit. Fevronia warmly greets the stranger, treats him with bread and honey, and all the young man’s doubts are dispelled. Admired by the beauty, purity and wisdom of Fevronia, he asks her to become his wife. Fevronia at first doubts, fearing that the princely hunter, for whom she takes the stranger, is not a match for her, but then she happily agrees. Hearing the sound of the horn, the young man says goodbye to the bride and leaves to answer this call. Archer hunters appear with Fyodor Poyark. From them, the amazed Fevronia learns that her fiancé is none other than Vsevolod Yuryevich, the son of the Prince of the Great Kitezh.
Act II
In Maly Kitezh on the banks of the Volga
The shopping area of Maly Kitezh is crowded with people waiting for the wedding train heading to Great Kitezh. Little Bear plays the pipe and shows the learned bear. The guslar sings a song full of gloomy omens. Rich townspeople, dissatisfied with the choice of the prince, give money to the tramp Grishka Kuterma so that he gets drunk and meets the bride “with dignity.”
The wedding train is approaching. The people praise the future princess. Grishka Kuterma tries to get forward, but they don’t let him in. Fevronia notices this and asks to let Grishka through, despite Fyodor Poyarka’s attempts to dissuade her. The mess showers Fevronia with insults, but it is not anger, but pity and compassion that the drunkard evokes in her. The people drive Grishka out of the square and start a wedding song.
Suddenly a column of dust rises and a noise is heard. These are the Tatars approaching, among whom are Bedyai and Burundai. The people run away in horror and hide, the Tatars find the frightened residents and kill them. Fevronia is also grabbed, but Burundai, amazed by her beauty, decides to save her life. The Tatars are looking for a way to Great Kitezh, but no one, even under torture, agrees to take the enemies to the city, until Grishka Kuterma, frightened by torment, decides to betray. The triumphant Tatars are heading towards Kitezh. Fevronia prays to God to make the city invisible.
Act III
Scene 1
The Tatars, having blinded Fyodor Poyark, sent him as a messenger to Great Kitezh. Fyodor tells the people gathered in the square about the sad fate of Little Kitezh and the impending arrival of the Tatars. According to rumors, Fevronia herself is leading enemies into the city. While the residents of Kitezh pray to heaven for protection, Prince Vsevolod and his retinue advance to meet the enemy. The bells of Kitezh begin to ring of their own accord, a golden fog descends from the heavens and envelops the city.
Act III
Scene 2
Vsevolod's squad was defeated. The prince himself was killed in the battle of Kerzhenets. Grishka Kuterma leads the Tatars to the shore of Lake Svetloyar, but on the opposite shore, where Great Kitezh should rise, nothing is visible, everything is hidden by thick fog. The Tatars, fearing that Grishka has deceived them and led them into the thicket, tie him to a tree so that he does not run away until the morning, and they themselves begin to divide the spoils. A quarrel breaks out between Bedyai and Burundai over Fevronia. Burunday kills Poor. The Tatars fall asleep.
Fevronia mourns Prince Vsevolod. Kuterma begs the girl to free him, because she has no need to fear reprisals from the Tatars: after Grishka “ordered to say” that she betrayed Great Kitezh, anyone who meets her will kill her. The shocked Fevronia frees him. Turtle rushes to the lake and freezes when he sees that the shore is empty, but the reflection of the city is still visible in the water. Struck by the spectacle, he runs screaming into the forest, dragging Fevronia with him. The Tatars, awakened by his scream, see the reflection of an invisible hail in the lake and run away in horror.
Act IV
Scene 1
Night. Fevronia and Grishka make their way through the forest thicket. The mess continues to mock the princess. She prays to God to have mercy on Grishka and send him at least one tear of compassion. Fevronia and Grishka pray together, but Kuterma, pursued by terrible visions, runs away.
Exhausted Fevronia lies down on the grass. Suddenly, thousands of candles are lit on the trees, and unprecedented flowers bloom around. The singing of the birds of paradise Alkonost and Sirin is heard, heralding death and eternal life. The ghost of Prince Vsevolod appears. The bride and groom head together into the invisible city.
Act IV
Scene 2
In the invisible city
The people praise the bride and groom by starting a wedding song, which was interrupted by the Tatar invasion. Prince Yuri blesses Fevronia, but the thought of Grishka, who has disappeared in the forest, does not leave her, and she dictates a letter to Kuterma to Fyodor Poyark, who has regained his sight. Finally, the bride and groom head to the cathedral.
In Izhevsk, on April 15 and 19, 2018, the opera “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” was staged. This opera is practically unknown to the audience of our country, since the country's opera houses rarely turn to it, and if they do, they greatly distort the opera. We set ourselves the task of showing the significance of this opera for Rus'-Russia and revealing the second semantic series, important for understanding the past, present and future of our civilization.
The website of the Udmurt Opera and Ballet Theater tells us the following information about the opera:
A little over a hundred years ago, in the early 1900s, Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov began his fourteenth and penultimate opera. Its plot was based on two ancient Russian legends of the 13th century - about the “Invisible City of Kitezh” and the legend about St. Princess Fevronia of Murom, which were firmly united in the composer’s mind. In the legend of Kitezh real events The era of Tatar-Mongol rule acquired a fantastic coloring: the city was saved from destruction by the Tatars by God's providence - it became invisible and became a place of ideal life. Together with the poet Vladimir Belsky, Rimsky-Korsakov worked long and meticulously on the libretto, the source of which was chronicles, legends, tales, folk songs, epics and spiritual poems. The composer was very pleased with the libretto; it turned out to be outstanding, combining epic and lyricism, heroism and fantasy, and most importantly, completely Russian. The opera presents a gallery of bright national types: the ideal image of a Russian woman, faithful and loving, ready for heroism; the dramatic image of Grishka Kuterma, morally broken; warrior-defenders going to their death.
The composer himself, and after him the researchers, consider “The Legend” to be the pinnacle of Rimsky-Korsakov’s work. But, despite all the perfection of the opera, it strangely provokes discussions and is not included in the permanent repertoire of theaters. And her contemporaries received her ambiguously. Perhaps the fact is that Rimsky-Korsakov, while working on an opera that was formally epic, almost fabulous, put into it forebodings about the fate of the country.
The beginning of the 20th century... The pendulum hovered at its highest point, time stood still, another moment - and it would inevitably swing in the opposite direction, picking up speed, sweeping away everything in its path. For Russia, this is not the first and not the last time - the pendulum is swinging, which means that a change in times is inevitable, history will repeat itself: the Mongol-Tatar yoke, revolutions, Patriotic wars... Men will fight, traitors will betray, and women will pray. And it is not so important what shirts or uniforms are worn by those who are ready to die for their Motherland. Kitezh, an invisible city that arose by God's providence, awaits them.
“Everyone who does not have a divided mind will prefer to live in the city.”
In the new production, freed from the exact time reference to the Russian Middle Ages, the opera gains greater freedom in the interpretation of images: among the defenders of Kitezh, people in pea coats flash, the silhouette of the enemy Tatars resembles knightly armor... Times and eras merge, and the same transformations, and literal ones, are also experienced space: forest, cell, city, church are one thing - a place where everyone chooses their own path. Does this path lead to the invisible city?
http://operaizh.ru/actiondetail.php?id=45
WHAT IS OPERA?
To move on to a discussion of the opera “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia,” it is necessary first of all to say a few words about what opera is and why is it needed?
People communicate with each other through speech, to which they attach one or another meaning. This subjective meaning is a kind of “tracing copy” of the objective meaning. This “tracing paper” is the more pure and adequate the more accurate (verified) the feelings and the entire attunement of the human psyche. The process of generating speech is mostly concentrated in the unconscious levels of the psyche (since the process of endowing images with codes-words occurs primarily automatically, that is, unconsciously). At this time, consciousness and will can solve some other operational tasks. And such situations are possible when a person, being unable to control the process of speaking with his will (works at the level of consciousness), is able to express orally and in writing opinions that are significantly higher than his own current understanding of the world (belongs to the level of consciousness in the human psyche), and before understanding which he himself still has to grow and grow, perhaps throughout his life.
Just as several people doing common work in a team should be attuned to each other in business, so the speech of people should also be attuned so that there is no discord. The whole world “sounds” in different ranges, and its “sound” affects a person, and the “sound” of a person also affects the world. Inadequate, incompatible “sounding” can lead to destructive consequences for a person and the world.
When a person understands that the world is one and complete, he begins to feel that the “sound” of the world is a perfect harmonious symphony. And you begin to think about how to bring your own “sound” into harmony with the symphony of the world. If he begins to take care of this in a conscious and volitional manner, then his feelings become sharpened and calibrated, the spectrum of perception of Life through them expands. And the person finds himself carried away by the spiral flow of his own development. He can easily maintain himself in it without experiencing fatigue if he feels the phenomenon of coherence (timeliness) and his behavior is coherent (timely) in relation to the dynamics of the encompassing processes, up to the process of Omnipotence.
In the normal, undeveloped culture of human society, the culture of oral and written speech organically grows from musical culture. And through musical culture it inevitably turns out to be connected with the culture of physical and spiritual plasticity, the culture of “dance” in itself. in a general sense this word as the “dance of life”.
This means that articulate speech expresses a certain internal music of the personality, and words fall on this music, or (if these are the words of another person) the internal music of the personality is capable of rejecting them in cases where they do not express the internal music of another personality that is not “consonant” with it. This means that the current culture, in which music, speech and dance are mutually disconnected and isolated from each other, is unnatural and does not correspond to human nature.
From these ideological positions, a special view of the art of opera opens up, allowing us to understand its special role in culture. At first glance, common to many, the art of opera is perhaps the most isolated form of artistic creativity, which, in terms of the artificiality and conventionality of the expressive (i.e., linguistic - in the broadest sense of the word) means used in it, is superior only to ballet and openly naked abstractionism (of course, if it is abstractionism that carries some ideas and emotions, which are extremely difficult or impossible to express through the means of “realistic art”, and not an abstract-like product of a sick psyche).
The basis of this kind of opinion about the non-life of the art of opera lies precisely in the fact that in the operatic action music, text, stage action, dances, and scenery are fused together and mutually determine each other, through which the opera displays life in one or another of its manifestations, in while in real life itself, accessible to the perception of everyone, people speak, but do not sing, talking with each other; they dance not in squares and streets, but in specially designated places; and music, even if it accompanies the life and activities of people, is only from the speaker of the receiver or player - in our days; and before the advent of the electronic era, everyday life for the most part went on for thousands of years without music, which only brightened up rare holidays or set the general rhythm in the work of groups.
However, contrary to such opinions about the art of opera, it is precisely this art that is the most full-blooded system of reflecting real life in artistic creativity. Let's start with the fact that music belongs to the sound range of mechanical vibrations that a person perceives by ear. Depending on what kind of vibrations these are, a person perceives melodies, accompaniment and arrangements, harmony or cacophony, etc., and the organism (body and biofield), psyche (information and algorithms characteristic of the individual) in some way respond to the sound of music in addition to the will of the people themselves. But in the Nature surrounding each of us and in every person, there are many other vibrations that do not belong to the sound range or are not mechanical vibrations, and therefore are not perceived by ear. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that the patterns of oscillatory processes are the same in their essence throughout the entire frequency range for each of the types of oscillations that are characteristic of certain types of matter. In other words, the World around us “sounds,” and we all “sound” in it, but only a small part of this universal sound is mechanical vibrations and belongs to the sound frequency range and is perceived by us at the level of consciousness as sounds, including those ordered in some way the sounds that are called "music".
The boundary separating every personality in the Universe is conditional in the sense that the general natural (physical) fields included in a person’s biofield extend far from the location of his material body and merge with similar general natural fields of other objects and subjects. And on the basis of this kind of biofield interaction of personality and Life, a person at the unconscious levels of his psyche has access to much of the “sounding” of Life that takes place outside the audio frequency range and outside mechanical vibrations. But if there are various kinds of oscillatory processes, then they also have what is called harmony and dissonance. A person whose feelings and psyche are in harmony with Life himself acts harmoniously in the world, avoiding dissonance in his relationship with Life, helping to eliminate destructive processes around him that are expressed in some kind of dissonance. A person whose feelings and psyche are not in harmony with Life, himself acts disharmoniously in the world, generating dissonance and avoiding harmony in his relationships with Life and unnaturally destroying the harmony around him and in himself, which is expressed in some new dissonances in relation to embracing harmony.
That is, we live in a World in which our own music “sounds”, harmonious music, in which there are dissonances:
- or episodes that arise mostly during not very successful transitions from one mode of functioning of natural and artificial systems to other modes;
- or some painful phenomena that are suppressed by Life itself if they acquire a tendency to a stable course and further spread. And the artistic way of life precisely in such a diverse “sounding” Universe is shown to a person out of all the many types of arts developed in culture - only opera.
In opera, everything complements each other and demonstrates the significance of each other: music, leading the stage action and carrying the texts; stage action taking place against the backdrop of scenery and leading music; scenery that emphasizes the meaning of stage action and text, while matching the music, helping to perceive both it and the artistic integrity of the opera. In other words, an opera that is good in all its components and their interrelations - both as a genre and as a specific work of this genre - is a very important thing in the culture of any nation. But the art of opera is characterized by a division of those involved in the stage action into actors and musicians - on the one hand, and on the other hand - into spectators. In a round dance (unlike an opera), all its participants are both actors and spectators, and therefore in a round dance music, text and dance merge together like nowhere else.
Round dance has been one of the attributes of Russian culture since ancient times and one of the means for people to realize the collective magic of the people as part of their natural life.
Let's return to the production of the opera “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” by the Udmurt Opera and Ballet Theater.
Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in the preface to the score: “When staging the story on stage, no cuts or breaks in the music can be allowed as they distort the artistic meaning and musical form.” This condition is constantly violated during production, and “The Tale” itself is the least known of Russian epic operas.
The author of the libretto is N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s friend Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky. I. Martynov, the author of the text of the insert, gives an assessment of the text of V.I. Belsky’s libretto: “there is not a single little thing that was not, in one way or another, inspired by a feature of some kind of poem, plot, or other layer of Russian folk art.”
In the modern production by N. Markelov, the most significant parts of the opera were thrown out as insignificant, and the scenery diverged greatly from the musical and textual part of the opera, presenting a kind of kaleidoscope, similar to the kaleidoscope in the head of Grishka Kuterma. Thus, N. Markelov staged not “The Legend...” at all, but a kind of performance that distorted the original meaning of “The Legend...” laid down by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Vladimir Belsky. Now about everything in more detail.
In our opinion, “The Tale” is the highest achievement of opera in Russia. In this opera, the authors, having begun to create within the limitations of traditional biblical culture, were able to come close to its borders, look beyond them, but were unable to break free from them.
Act one
In the dense forests near Small Kitezh there lives a girl named Fevronia. She grew up in the wilderness, far from people, and learned to understand the language of nature, the language of birds and animals. One evening, a young man with a silver horn at his belt, who looks like a princely hunter, approaches her house. While hunting for a bear, he received a wound in the shoulder, got lost and now does not know how to get out of the forest thickets. Fevronia warmly greets the stranger, bandages his wound, and brings out bread and honey. The girl’s affectionate, intelligent speeches and her beauty win the heart of a young stranger. He asks Fevronia to become his wife. The girl answers in embarrassment: “My dear, I’m afraid of something... The prince’s hunter is no match for me...” The sounds of hunting horns are heard in the forest. The stranger, having put a ring on Fevronia’s finger, leaves. The princely archers appear. They are looking for a young man with a silver horn. Pointing out the path along which her fiancé left, Fevronia asks his name and hears in response: “That was our Lord Vsevolod, Prince Yury’s little child, they reign together in the capital Kitezh.”
Act two
On the shopping square in Maly Kitezh, people are waiting for the wedding train with the prince's bride. There is excitement everywhere. Only the “best people” (the rich townspeople) do not share in the general jubilation. They are dissatisfied with the prince’s choice: after all, the bride has no family, no tribe. They got the dissolute hawk-moth Grishka Kuterma drunk, and now he mocks the prince’s bride. The bells of the approaching wedding train can be heard. The people greet Fevronia, only Grishka Kuterma mocks her. Suddenly, disaster strikes the city. Hordes of Tatars capture Maly Kitezh. The massacre of the residents begins. Fevronia is taken prisoner, and the princely hunter Fyodor Poyark is blinded. The Tatars are planning to go to Great Kitezh, but the people refuse to show them the way. Only Kuterma, fearing torment, agrees to lead the enemies to his hometown. The Tatars leave, taking Fevronia with them. She prays to God to work a miracle and make the city invisible.
Act three
Picture one. At midnight, all the people, young and old, gathered with weapons in their hands in front of the Assumption Cathedral in Kitezh the Great. With difficulty, the blind Fyodor Poyarok reached the city and told the people about the terrible disaster: Small Kitezh fell, Fevronia was captured, the Tatar hordes were moving towards Kitezh. Prince Vsevolod gathers a squad and leaves for a mortal battle with the Tatars. Meanwhile, the church bells begin to ring by themselves. A light fog with a golden sheen envelops the city.
Picture two. In the oak grove on the shore of Lake Svetly Yar, everything is shrouded in thick fog. The Tatar heroes Bedyai and Burundai emerge from the thicket. They peer into the darkness, but cannot make out the outlines of the city. Tatar troops are located on the shore, dividing the spoils, celebrating the victory over Prince Vsevolod and his squad. Having become drunk, the Tatars fall asleep. Fevronia approaches the tied up Kuterma. Without remembering evil, she frees him from his bonds. It's getting light. The mess runs to the lake and stops dead in its tracks. The first rays of dawn illuminate the reflection of the capital city in the lake above the empty shore. Holiday bells ring solemnly and loudly. Kuterma loses his mind and runs into the forest with a wild laugh, dragging Fevronia with him. The Tatars are waking up. Seeing this wonderful picture, gripped by an unaccountable superstitious fear, they scatter.
Act four
Picture one. Dark night. Fevronia and the mad Kuterma make their way through the dense thicket. Fevronia tries to console and encourage the unfortunate man, but Kuterma runs away into the forest. Left alone, exhausted Fevronia sinks onto the grass and falls asleep. She dreams of wonderful golden flowers, the singing of spring birds. The voices of the birds of paradise Alkonost and Sirin are heard, calling for patience, promising eternal peace and joy. The shadow of the prince appears. And the bride and groom walk hand in hand towards eternal life.
Picture two. The fog clears and reveals a wonderfully transformed Kitezh. Fevronia and the prince enter the square and head towards the cathedral. The people surround them and sing a wedding song to the sounds of the harp and heavenly pipe.
Before reading the second part, we strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the libretto of the opera...
http://kob-media.ru/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Skazanie_o_grade_Kitege.doc
ABOUT HOW THE EPIC FOLK WORLDVIEW IS TRANSFORMED INTO A CONSCIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGICAL CULTURE
The epic plot reflected in the opera is concrete, but at the same time it is a mutual nesting of allegories of varying breadth and depth of generalizations. Based on real historical events, the epic tells not about how it really was, but about how it should have been: how it should be in the present and how it will be in the future. Information of the past, present and future is very densely packed into the epic tale.
In addition, in the specificity of the narrative, its social boundaries, which are very narrow, contain the entire information base (its conceptual part, first of all) of the living language of the people. The degree of mastery of the information base, which objectively exists in each language and is only transmitted by its lexical forms, allows one to reveal an epic allegory. But the depth of disclosure is determined by the system of stereotypes used for recognizing external and inner worlds person.
Using the Biblical-Orthodox system of stereotypes, the director (chief choreographer of the Udmurt Opera and Ballet Theater) N. Markelov gives his interpretation of events in an interview with the radio “Komsomolskaya Pravda (Izhevsk)”:
“What is the main metaphor? The main metaphor is about the unity of the Russian people... A clearly expressed national idea with serious religious overtones. This is a conversation about two Russias. This is the Russia that I see in the image of Grisha Kuterma, this is the Russia that deals with demons, and the Russia that leaves and then returns, like the Phoenix bird, which at a certain moment spreads its wings and such a Russian renaissance occurs again... in history we can see this repeatedly.”
Anna Popova, head of the literary and dramatic department of the Udmurt Opera and Ballet Theater:
“Now it’s coming back to us... It (opera - author’s note) is coming back now for some reason, because some time has come, because people are ready, the theater is ready, the orchestra is ready, people are ready to take on it, and we hope that the viewer is ready..."
Nikolay Markelov:
“We remember those times when church domes flew and crosses were destroyed. Rimsky-Korsakov foresaw and foresaw all this... church domes without crosses, and princely mansions without princes... These are absolutely prophetic words. And this will probably be a subject of debate - our concept... For some reason, the prince introduced himself to us as our the last king, and his father, such a kind, great Tsar Alexander the Third... The latter Romanov himself very much regretted, where did this Moscow principality go, we have no dialogue with the people. This is a catastrophe that we know what led to... Gregory is Judas, who betrays and tells the way to Great Kitezh... This is Grigory Rasputin, who opened that Pandora's box and captured the minds of the royal family."
We use a different methodology, with a different system for recognizing phenomena, and we see the Orthodox Christian city only on the surface. We look deeper, where those who are lost in the biblical golden mist do not penetrate, hence their horror of the collapse of churches. Is it possible for something to happen without a cause? Certainly not. But if this happened, then a natural question arises - who was the first to renounce the tsar, what role did the church play in the collapse of the state and themselves?
AND NOW LET'S GO TO THE OPERA ITSELF
“The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” is one of the most significant works of Russian opera classics. It is characterized by a combination of epic and lyric poetry, heroic and fantastic motifs of folk poetry. The plot is based on an ancient Russian legend of the 13th century, the era of Tatar-Mongol rule. Real historical events took on a fantastic coloring in it. According to legend, the city of Kitezh was saved from destruction by the Tatars by “God’s will”: it became invisible and became a place of ideal, according to popular understanding, earthly life.
Before the viewer passes a gallery of bright national types, unprecedentedly new on the opera stage. This is Fevronia - the ideal image of a Russian woman, faithful and loving, wise and benevolent, modest and selflessly devoted, ready for the feat of self-sacrifice. She is sharply contrasted with the image of Kuterma, stunning in its drama and life truth - a morally broken man, crushed by poverty. In terms of its social and accusatory power, this image has no equal in world operatic literature. The tragic fates of the main characters are shown in inseparable connection with the fate of the people experiencing the difficult times of the Tatar invasion, against the backdrop of pictures of Russian nature, folk life, and the patriotic struggle against a ruthless enemy. In accordance with the content of folk legends, along with the real ones, magical pictures of heavenly nature and the miraculously transformed city of Kitezh appear in the opera.
“The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” is a legendary opera in 4 acts. The slow development of the action, the abundance of broad expressive melodies of a song-Russian character give the opera an original national coloring, the flavor of distant hoary antiquity.
The orchestral introduction “In Praise of the Desert” paints a picture of a forest with the rustling of leaves and birdsong; Fevronia's melodies sound here.
One of the most important sources"Kitezh", which predetermines the religious concept of the opera, is the life of Fevronia of Murom.
Fevronia from the opera is a maiden, the personification of purity and innocence, carrying a secret folk worldview, incomprehensible to foreign sages and those captive to their delusions for centuries.
To the prince's question:
Tell me, pretty girl,
Do you go to pray in the Church of God?
Fevronia.
No, I have a long way to go, my dear...
And even then: isn’t God everywhere?
You're thinking: there's empty space here,
But no - the church here is great, -
Look around with smart eyes
(reverently, as if seeing himself in church).
Day and night we have Sunday service,
Day and night there is thyme and incense;
During the day the sun (sun) is shining for us, clear,
At night the stars, like candles, will glow.
Day and night we sing sweetly,
What a rejoicing to all the voices, -
Birds, animals, all kinds of breath
They sing about the beautiful light of the Lord.
“Glory to you forever, the sky is bright,
The high throne is wonderful to God the Lord!
The same glory to you, mother earth,
You are a strong footstool for God!”
Knyazhich Vsevolod(looks at Fevronia in amazement).
Oh, you beautiful maiden!
Your simple speeches are marvelous to me,
All about joy, fun red.
Old people say differently:
“Do not set your sights on earthly joys,
On earth we must grieve and cry.”
And I would like to go into the desert completely, -
Eh, but youth is a hindrance:
Asks for some good fun.
Fevronia(very affectionately and soulfully, taking him by the hand and looking into his eyes).
Darling, how can you live without joy?
To be without the fun of red?
Look: all the birds are playing,
The prowling beast is having fun and jumping.
Believe me, it’s not the saved tear,
What flows from melancholy,
Only that saved tear
What grows from God's joy,
And my dear, don’t be afraid of my sin:
We love everyone as he is,
A serious sinner, is he a righteous man?
The beauty of the Lord is in every soul.
Everyone who shot himself (met - our note) was sent by God;
He is in grief, so we need him even more.
Caress me, although I was a villain,
Rejoice with heavenly joy (carrying away in thought).
And the unprecedented will come true:
Everything will be decorated with beauty,
The earth will flourish like a wondrous garden,
And the trees of paradise will bloom.
Wonderful birds will fly here -
Birds of joy, birds of mercy, -
They will sing in the trees with the voice of angels,
And from the holy heavens there is a crimson ringing,
From behind the clouds an unspeakable light...
Here, a misunderstanding of the directors of the Udmurt Theater has already been revealed, who cut out part of the text and thereby “cut off” Fevronia’s worldview, that is, they did not allow people to fully understand how the essence of Russian theology differs from the biblical one.
Fevronia lives far from power and civilization. As the Russian proverb says:
“No matter the city, it’s faith, no matter the village, it’s measure.”
Fevronia discovered a natural system of information coding. She perceives life in its fullness and integrity. Herself to state power doesn't tear. Power in the form of a prince comes to her on her own, because the “elite” bearers of power are blind. Without smart eyes, the “elite” always feels bad, thanks to the efforts of the “faithful” Mosaicites, who distorted the Revelations when recording them and therefore lost their Discrimination.
Accordingly, Fevronia’s constant feeling of the integrity of the world in its trinity is incomprehensible to Prince Vsevolod Yuryevich, which raises his question about her occasional observance of the external rituals of the temple, which was initially alien to Russia. The worldview of the “elite” does not rise above the understanding of external ritualism.
Vsevolod Yurievich - state power. Vsevolod is the VOLODER of EVERYONE. Yuryevich - named after the founder of Moscow Yuri Dolgoruky. He doesn't understand anything. Hunts a bear, i.e. on the Russian peasant, according to the allegorical tradition that has developed throughout the world. I received a wound from a man because of my misunderstanding. Fevronia's clever speeches attract him; he has the awareness that he is missing something.
The best people(to each other):
That's why the rootless need is glad,
That's screaming and mocking! —
And even then I’ll say: isn’t it a joke?
Everyone became related to the prince. —
It’s a wedding, what a disaster!
Our women are furious
They don’t want to bow to the bride:
Like without a clan and without a tribe.
The “best people” are the social “elite”. She fears more than fire the unification of state power with the people's worldview.
Grishka Kuterma- “elite” and bohemian intelligentsia; she does not understand anything and always serves the “elite”, be it her own or an alien one, and mocks everything popular. She is mad initially, but her madness is only later realized by everyone around her.
Poyarok: And when they grabbed me, they laughed a lot...
After blinding them, they sent a messenger
With this little boy to Prince Yury...
Fedor Poyarok- part of the intelligentsia trying to honestly serve the people. She is blinded by the cultural aggressor and therefore does not see the general course of processes in the Universe.
Horde- symbol of the aggressor. The fact that they are Tatars is a particular thing in the epic; concreteness, personifying the forces of Evil. Their ethnic origin, i.e. form, in the plot does not manifest itself in any meaningful way.
— multi-level allegorical inter-nesting of concepts. On the one hand, there is the capital of the state, which has full control functions.
On the other hand, there are two Kitezhes: Small and Great.
Small Kitezh is captured by the enemy, but Great Kitezh is not visible to the enemy. Apparently only a reflection of its beauty and grandeur in the mirror purity of the lake. Maly Kitezh- public consciousness, littered and defaced by the aggressor - biblical Western culture in all its modifications.
Great Kitezh- the ideal of the level of the public “subconscious” (collective unconscious - the Russian spirit), which has preserved integrity and purity. It is hidden by fog with a golden sheen from everyone who has lost the integrity of their worldview, but the reflection of its objective presence in life is apparently real in the surrounding reality.
Tatars(they grumble):
Oh, you Rus', damned land!
There is no straight road
Yes, and the paths are littered
We’ll sing, we’ll throw a log, we’ll speed it up.
And our steppe komoni
People stumble over roots;
From the fog from the swamp
The Tatar spirit is engaged,
Even though they beat the good army,
The third day we are still wandering around in vain.
(To the mess).
You made us faint, drunkard,
He took us to deserted places!
They surround Kuterma with threats; he throws himself at the feet of the heroes.
Mess(with desperate determination.)
You can’t escape the absolute torment,
I don't belong in this world!
I'll throw myself into the pool,
I will live with dark demons,
Play leapfrog with them at night.
He rushes to the lake and stops at the shore, rooted to the spot. The first rays of dawn illuminate the surface of the lake and the reflection of the capital city in the lake under the empty shore. The festive ringing rings, becoming louder and more solemn. The mess rushes back to Fevronia.
Mess(pointing at the lake in mad surprise):
Where the demon was, there is God now;
Where God was, there was nothing!
Where is the demon now, princess?
Laughs madly.
Ahaha! Let's run, my dear!
“He” tells me to find the city in Kitezh...
He runs away with a wild cry, dragging Fevronia with him. His cry woke up the Tatars.
Hence the superstitious, unaccountable horror of the “victor” enemy and the crazy Kutermy-Kaleidoscope (double surname) serving him.
Late in the evening, Kuterma led the enemy to the lake, behind which the city was located. The enemy army indulged in revelry. When all the enemies calmed down under the influence of drink and fatigue, Fevronia early in the morning frees Kuterma from his bonds, but by this time he had completely lost his mind. Seeing the reflection of the city in the lake under the visibly empty shore, Kuterma runs away into the forest, dragging Fevronia with him. After that, they wander, and Fevronia takes care of him like a little child, teaching him about life and prayer. As a result, Fevronia passes into another reality and finds herself in the hidden Kitezh. And Kuterma remains to live on Earth. But also in a different reality of Kitezh.
Alkonost and Sirin- in Russian fairy tales, prophetic birds with female faces. To one, future misfortunes are open, to the other, future joys. Fevronia - receives information from them. Statehood - Vsevolod is united with the people's worldview - Fevronia.
The golden fog dissipates and reveals the Great Kitezh - both the capital and the public subconscious, which embodied its ideals in life: i.e. the beginning and end of all contours of management in society - the conceptual power of the people reaches a conscious level of management according to the predictor-corrector scheme (predictor-corrector). That is, people learn to predict the consequences of their actions, adjust control (rather than go with the flow of life) and take control into their own hands.
Fevronia in “The Legend…” is a pagan monotheist standing outside official church(as we saw earlier). And she assures Grishka Kuterma, who has become possessed after betrayal, that he is not a lost soul, even after everything he has done, if only he sincerely repents to God. And this is her constant position, expressed through all the actions of the opera right up to the finale:
Prince Vsevolod:
Oh, you are a faithful bride!
It's time for us to go to God's church,
To the Church of God, to the golden crown.
Fevronia (with an affectionate request).
My dear, desired groom!
Grishenka remained there in the forest;
He is weak in soul and body,
That the child has become a mind...
How can Grishenka be brought into this city?
Prince Yuri:
The time has not come Grishino:
The heart in him does not ask for the light.
Fevronia:
Oh, at least send a letter,
Grisha's small consolation,
Good news to the lesser brethren!
Prince Yuri:
So what? Fyodor will write a letter,
The little lad will report to Grisha:
Let it spread throughout Rus'
God's miracles are great.
Fevronia (Poyarku):
Well, write. What can I not do?
Good people will tell you the story.
(Poyarok places a long scroll on the turned railing of the prince’s porch and prepares to write. Fevronia and the princes are near her.)
Fevronia(telling Poyark what to write):
Grishenka, even though you are weak in mind,
And I’m writing to you dear. (Poyarok writes)
Did you write it or not?
Poyarok:
Written.
Fevronia:
Don't blame us for the dead, we are alive:
The city of Kitezh did not fall, but only disappeared.
We live in a very lousy place,
Which the mind cannot contain in any way.
We flourish like dates,
Aki krina are fragrant;
Let's listen to the sweetest singing
Sirinovo, Alkonostovo...
(to Prince Yuri)
Who will enter this city, my lord?
Prince Yuri(prompting the scribe).
Anyone who does not have a divided mind,
He would rather be in the city than to live.
This is real Orthodoxy, but it is very far from the Bible. The mind of biblical civilization is not only divided, but scattered into dust. So that the mind is not scattered, the “esotericism” of the “elite” should not deny the obvious teaching common to all, but after that it will cease to be esoteric in the traditional sense of the word, and the “elite” ceases to be an “elite”. Society will become managerially literate and conceptually powerful.
Fevronia(continuing the message):
Well, goodbye, don’t remember us badly,
May the Lord grant you to repent!
Here's a sign: look at the sky at night,
Like pillars of fire blazing.
They will say: the Pazori are playing... no,
Then the righteous prayer rises.
(to everyone)
Is that what I say?
People:
Yes, princess.
Fevronia(again to Poyarku): Otherwise, put your ear to the ground:
You will hear a benign and wonderful ringing,
As if the vault of heaven was ringing
Then in Kitezh they ring for matins.
Did you write it, Theodore?
Poyarok:
Wrote.
Fevronia(to the prince):
Well, let's go now, let's go, my dear!
Prince Vsevolod takes Fevronia by the hand and leads her to the cathedral.
People(seeing them off):
No crying here
No illness
Sweetness, sweetness
Endless
Joy
Eternal...
The doors of the Assumption Cathedral swing open, revealing an indescribable light.
This concludes the opera. But the moral and ideological prologue to such a conclusion was shown in the first act, thus the opera is looped.
In the above dialogue, the official church worldview was expressed through Prince Vsevolod, and through Fevronia, a person’s living, non-ritual faith in God in conscience.
ABOUT SHAME AND CONSCIENCE...
Fevronia and Vsevolod openly reflect two different worldviews. Thanks to this, the opera acquired special significance in Russian culture and turned out to be significant in the history of Russia. But the Russian ruling class - the main consumer of opera - then turned out to be arrogantly stupid and considered the opera after its first productions to be “sluggish”, “overly serious in content”, “coldly rational” or “unctuously mystical”, “not strict enough in relation to to the traitor Grishka-Kuterma."
V.O. Klyuchevsky, in one of his aphorisms, characterized his “elite” contemporaries - the Russian ruling class - as follows:
“He lied so much that he doesn’t believe himself even when he tells the truth. Whom he will not betray when he betrays himself every minute: this is self-Judas.”
“They have no conscience, but an awful lot of resentment: they are not ashamed to do dirty tricks, but cannot stand the reproach of dirty tricks.”
And those “Samoyudas” who were not satisfied with the mercy of the plot in relation to the fallen Grishka Kuterma and wanted cruel retribution for him - themselves received the most severe retribution during the revolution and civil war. What it means: refusal and inability to exercise mercy on the fallen, especially after this has been pointed out directly and repeatedly, is not supported from Above.
The opinion about the ease of retribution with shame expresses a kind of vindictiveness and in its essence is erroneous and false. In the living Russian language, the concept of shame is associated not with the judgment that takes place after something has been done, but with the reprehensibility of unworthy human behavior. Reprehensibility is one of the components of God’s act of Predestination of existence, and therefore forestalls the unworthy.
One of the meanings of the word “shame”, “stud” in V.I. Dahl’s Dictionary is defined as follows:
“Shame (...) a feeling or inner consciousness of the REJECTIONABLE (emphasis added when quoting), humiliation, self-condemnation, repentance and humility, inner confession to conscience.”
Among the proverbs and folk sayings V.I. Dahl there is also this:
“People’s shame (that is, someone else’s shame: our explanation when quoting) is laughter, and your own is death.”
And in essence, shame for many turns out to be worse than death, as a result of which, unable to bear shame in life, they choose death and commit suicide in the baseless hope of escaping shame after death, even in those cultures where religious doctrine promises endless hell as retribution for suicide. Shame seems more unbearable to them than hell.
The opinion about the supposed insignificance and ease of atonement for sins, especially those committed with malicious intent, through the knowledge of shame is an expression of a certain vindictiveness and moral and ethical unconsciousness: those who think so have forgotten their feelings at the first wave of shame that rolled over them (most likely ) V early childhood, when they first felt that they had done something unworthy of a person. Then we all learned to move away from shame and suppress it within ourselves. But the shame of the “day of judgment” - the Day of Shame - to which everyone who abuses God’s merciful Predestination dooms himself, no one can suppress, and there will be nowhere to escape from it. Therefore, even knowing that in God’s Predestination of existence there is no place for endless hell, one should not abuse God’s mercy even within the limits He allows (for each individual). Moreover, you should know and understand, correlate with your life, that those who commit something unworthy of a person through a sincere mistake are allowed to do what is suppressed in relation to those who are informed that what they are doing is a PREDEPENDED evil; and in suppressing their activities in life one of the types of protecting them from unbearable shame on the Day of Shame is expressed.
And the name “Shameful Day” evokes much more in the soul discomfort, rather than the usual names “Judgment Day”, “Last Judgment”, precisely because in life, although we are not afraid of shame as much as we are afraid of some kind of danger, we always try to avoid its inexpressible impact. The best way to avoid shame is to sincerely strive for righteousness, and then God will help you avoid the unpleasant, inexpressible, but ennobling, transforming effects of shame.
But hell, Gehenna can still exist - as an egregor (the collective spirit of people definitely connected with each other), which captivates the souls of sinners due to the principles of its construction. However, it was created and fueled by the energy and information of the fears, horrors and evil thoughts of the people themselves. Heaven, like the antipode of hell, can exist on the same principles of energy information support. It is useful to know that the system pagan beliefs Rus' in pre-Epiphany times did not include the teachings of eternal hell and heaven, and the Russians were free from moral terror and moral bribery of this kind; terror is not anonymous, but carried out by the spiritual police of the occupiers - the hierarchs of the “Orthodox” church.
However, we live in an era when what has been said is one of many, incompatible opinions about God, about His Predestination and about His Providence, and not the everyday reality of the endless goodness in all respects and meanings of existence of everyone without exception. But there is no compulsion to faith and religion.
CONCLUSION
It is possible that someone will not like this interpretation of the “Tale”. In this case, all we have to do is put forward against him the traditional recent years“accusation of being Russian-speaking.” This means that a person has mastered the lexical forms and grammar of the Russian language, but under this linguistic form there is a meaning generated not by Russian culture (but most often by biblical culture). There is no crime against Russian culture in being Russian-speaking, provided that through Russian-speaking a different national culture is revealed to Russians. But if, through Russian-speaking, the destruction of the national cultures of all the peoples of the country occurs through non-national internationalism, then the indignation of the internationalist at such an interpretation of the “Tale” is quite appropriate. The literalness of “The Tale of the City of Kitezh” describes the process. Therefore, the question arises about the chronological boundaries of the beginning and end of the allegory. The beginning has two chronological boundaries.
First— the mockingly violent baptism of Rus' by the “elite” into Byzantism, i.e. Vsevolod's "bear" hunt begins. Second- the end of the 19th century, when Russian statehood turned to the worldview culture of the people, their epic, one of the many expressions of which was the appearance of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera itself.
The “elite” intelligentsia turned to the epic worldview of the people - this is the beginning of the final phase of the process of transforming the epic worldview into the people's historical, philosophical, methodological culture.
The “Wedding of Vsevolod and Fevronia” did not take place then due to the invasion of the cultural aggressor and the conspiracy of Grishka Kuterma with him. The death of Vsevolod in the battle at Kerzhenets - the First World War of the twentieth century and the civil war of 1917 - 20. There is also an episode in “The Tale” that can be chronologically precisely tied to modern times. Dawn over Svetly Yar, when the aggressor and Grishka Kuterma-Kaleidoscope see the reflection of the capital city in the lake under the apparently empty shore and hear the solemn buzz of the bells of Great Kitezh. The dawn began in 1989, when the most far-sighted “democrats” began to notice that market restructuring was perceived by many as a betrayal of the interests of workers. This is a common point for both the low-frequency process, which began with the baptism of Rus', and the high-frequency process, which began with the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when the opera was written. The development trends of both processes currently coincide, and this is a favorable period for translation social system into the state described by the last scene of the opera. It's time for Grishka-Kaleidoscope to either cure his madness or run into the forest.
What do we see in the Udmurt production? The biblical worldview and worldview of N. Markelov led to the removal of the second most important fragment, which completes the opera. At the same time, the first fragment, cut in half, was accompanied in every possible way by biblical life-dead symbolism in order to close the perception of the libretto text at the level of consciousness and the musical images of Rimsky-Korsakov at the subconscious level (although it is possible that the director did this unconsciously). In this sense, it is useful to compare the production of the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theater with the production of the Udmurt Theater, which is largely free from deadening biblicalism.
Although even within Markelov himself there is a struggle inside between his own unconscious levels of the psyche and the level of consciousness. In particular, the opera begins with a poem by Nikolai Rubtsov, which essentially reflects the same struggle between biblical culture and the Russian Spirit:
Russia, Rus' - wherever I look...
For all your suffering and battles -
I love your old Russia,
Your lights, graveyards and prayers,
I love your huts and flowers,
And the skies burning with heat,
And the whisper of willows by the muddy waters,
I love you forever, until eternal peace...
Russia, Rus! Protect yourself, protect yourself!
Look again into your forests and valleys
They came from all sides,
Tatars and Mongols of other times.
They carry a black cross on their flags,
They crossed the sky with crosses,
And it’s not the forests that I see around,
And the forest of crosses
in the surrounding area
Russia...
Crosses, crosses...
I can't do it anymore!
I will abruptly take my palms away from my eyes
And suddenly I see: at attention in the meadow
Hobbled horses chew the grass.
They will neigh - and somewhere near the aspens
The slow neighing will pick up the echo,
And above me -
immortal stars of Rus',
Tranquil twinkling of the high stars...
Opera is a special form of art, thanks to the music that leads the stage action. The combination of music, text, images (scenery, costumes) and action provides the highest protection of worldview information from distortion and misinterpretation.
Of all the epic operas of Russian music, “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” has the highest ideological level. This is the highest achievement of Russian music within a culture enslaved by the Bible. You can rise higher, but only by throwing away the Bible. As a result of this circumstance, in the musical culture of Russia, everything that composers wrote later than “The Legend” represents either a slide along the path of degradation in meaningless formalism, or more or less conscious attempts by them to break out of the captivity of a culture enslaved by the Bible.
It is for this reason that the opera “The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia” is least known to our contemporaries as an epic opera: censorship of the local biblical periphery does not sleep... Therefore, opera art in the USSR-Russia was placed on the reservation of the Bolshoi and other theaters, and national epic operas ousted from the stages of all the already small opera houses by Western classical operas, which, in general, say nothing to either the mind or the heart of the peoples of Russian civilization.
It is this opera that gives us the opportunity to touch the people’s worldview, understand it, in order to build the future of our planet more responsibly and managerially competently.
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