RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: LEGEND OF THE INVISIBLE CITY OF KITEZH - VEDERNIKOV; ORCHESTRA E CORO DEL TEATRO LIRICO DI CAGLIARI; KAZAKOV; PANFILOV; MONOGAROVA; GUBSKY; HAKOBYAN; GULORDAVA (3 CDS)

Rimsky Korsakov: The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia

Mikhail Kazakov (Prince Yury Vsevolodovich), Vitaly Panfilov (Prince Vsevolod Yur'yevich), Tatiana Monogarova (Fevroniya), Mikhail Gubsky (Grishka Kutyer'ma), Alexander Naumenko (Burunday)

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Alexander Vedernikov

The Invisible City of Kitezh, completed in 1905, is a remarkable opera that fuses folklore, mysticism and realism. Its subject is the story of the advancing Mongol army’s entry to Great Kitezh and the city’s subsequent miraculous survival. Rejecting archaisms and the more religiously inclined suggestions of his librettist, Rimsky-Korsakov sought to create an opera that “is contemporary and even fairly advanced”. It is therefore through-composed, hinting at times at Wagnerian procedure, and flooded with the composer’s rich, apt and brilliant orchestral palette, fully supportive of the powerful vocal writing.