Russian opera essentially came into being in the second quarter of the Nineteenth Century, the product of a surge in Russian nationalism. Because of this, it tends to deal with subjects that are less well known in the West, staged in a décor based on traditional court or peasant costumes and folk art.

Both productions we shall sample today are the work of stage director Dmitri Tcherniakov, who does not eschew traditional approaches so much as to put them in quotes, as it were, as reference points in his postmodern staging. So he can take the fairy-tale fantasy of Ruslan and Lyudmila (1841) by Mikhail Glinka (1804–57), and set its individual scenes in a bomb shelter, brothel, or penthouse apartment—or conversely take an historical opera such as The Tsar's Bride (1899) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), and set it in a hi-tech world that specializes in the creation of illusion.

Each presentation will include the final scene of the opera complete, plus enough preliminary material to put it into context. The class handout (links above) includes enough of a plot outline to make this clear. Because the director delivers quite a few surprises in his presentation, I would rather not give a preview as such, but listening to the overtures of the Glinka or Rimsky operas will give you a good idea of the flavor of the music. rb.