Tchaikovsky - Iolanta - Samosud (Part 2)

The orchestral introduction to Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta" describing "the world of blindness" could also serve perfectly as music to accompany the present historical moment in which we live. What follows this introduction is an exact parable on what could happen in the coming future in our present world under the best of conditions. So, maybe we can see the last opera of Tchaikovsky as a good-bye present the composer made especially for all of us alive right now.
As far as this "old recording" itself is concerned: it's one of the best examples I know of when it comes to what art is capable of giving us ... but art which stands outside all conceptions of passing time and space in order to give us something in the first place.
93 years ago, the artist Kazimir Malevich wrote: "art is not what it could be for us" ... and this has not changed for 93 years to the slightest degree.
Tchaikovsky: Iolanta
Side 2:
Scene with King Rene and Ibn-Hakia
King Rene's Aria
Scene with Vaudémont and Robert
For further information, see: en.tchaikovsky-...
Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Iolanta, Op. 69
Lyric Opera in one act
Libretto: Modest Tchaikovsky
after Henrik Hertz: "King René's Daughter"
Boris Bugaisky - René, King of Provence
Glafira Zhukovskaya - Iolanta, his daughter -
Panteleimon Nortsov - Robert, Duke of Burgundy
Grigori Bolshakov - Count Vaudémont, a Burgundian knight
Alexander Baturin - Ibn-Hakia, a Moorish physician
Alexander Khosson - Alméric, armor-bearer to King René
Mikhail Solovyev - Bertrand, doorkeeper of the castle
Maria Levina - Marta, Bertrand's wife, Iolanta's nursemaid
Kapitolina Rachevskaya - Brigitta, Iolanta's friend
Basya Amborskaya - Laura, Iolanta's friend
Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and Chorus / Samuil Samosud
This recording of Iolanta was made for the 100th anniversary of Tchaikovsky's birth in 1940.
(Melodiya, c. 1960's; recorded 1940)
LP transfers.