Oprichnik was Tchaikovsky's third opera, the first to have any measure of success. The composer recycled much of the music of his earlier Voyevoda, adapting it to the new libretto, which he wrote himself. As librettos go, Oprichnik's is a bit on the dull side, with long stretches of conversational dialog and much of the action taking place off-stage. However, Tchaikovsky's music mostly makes up for this limitation. Composed in 1869, the music is closer in style to the "pure" Russian musical aesthetic principles of the "Mighty Handful" than to the cosmopolitan, "westernized" Tchaikovsky of the contemporaneous Romeo and Juliet.

The story's title refers to young Andrej, who decides to join the Oprichniks--Ivan the Terrible's personal guards--so that he may obtain justice from the Czar for the wrongs committed by Prince Zemchuznyj, who killed Andrej's father, thus leaving the boy and his mother, Princess Morozova, living in poverty. Andrej also is secretly in love with Zemchuznyj's daughter Natalia, whom her father has promised to the elderly Molchan (a fate she is desperate to escape). Andrej succeeds in driving off Zemchuznyj, but when Morozova learns that her son has taken the blood oath of the Oprichniks, she disowns him, laying a deathly curse on his head. Nevertheless, Natalia and Andrej are happy together at last--that is until Andrej is called upon to fulfill his oath by submitting to the Czar's demand for a private visit with his new bride. Andrej revolts and is executed for his disloyalty. Morozova's curse is fulfilled.

Tenor Vsevolod Grivnov is quite convincing as Andrej; his bright, vibrant voice and ardent singing vividly portray the youth's dangerously unbridled emotions. As Natalia, soprano Elena Lassoskaya doesn't have much to do dramatically. (Her character, who spends much of her time being either aloof or forlorn, seems a study for Tchaikovsky's later, more fully-developed Tatiana.) She nonetheless provides beautiful, passionate singing throughout, especially in the fourth-act duet (which interestingly is based on the long lyrical theme from Tchakovsky's discarded orchestral tone poem Fatum), and especially in the final scene where Natalia joins Andrej in their desperate rebuke of the Czar.

Mezzo Irina Doljenko's powerful, rich-voiced performance conveys the deeply disturbed feelings of the beleaguered Morozova, and bass Vassily Savenko makes for a suitably stern Zemchuznyj. The Cagliari Lyric Theater chorus and orchestra perform handsomely under master Tchaikovskian Gennady Rozhdestvensky's idiomatic conducting. The live recording includes the inevitable stage noises and suffers from slight spatial and dynamic constriction. However, it offers satisfying balance between voices and orchestra, with the latter swelling up excitingly in the score's many dramatic tutti passages.

While Oprichnik certainly is not an operatic masterpiece on the order of Eugene Onegin or Pique Dame, it remains compelling as a novelty in the composer's output, presenting us with a harder, gritter Tchaikovsky than we're accustomed to. Opera fans and Tchaikovsky devotees should definitely hear it.

--Victor Carr Jr