AVA's "Evening of Russian Romances'

Russian opera singers have entered the mainstream. Anna Netrebko has scored hits in works by Puccini, Donizetti, Bellini and Offenbach. Marina Poplavskaya's first three Met outings were two operas by Verdi and one by Gounod.

But Russian arias? Not yet. The wide repertoire of Slavic music, characterized above all by a rhapsodic outpouring of emotion, has received little exposure in the U.S.

Not long ago, most Americans, doubtless influenced by the Cold War, thought of Russian as a strange and ugly language. The Met performed Boris Godunov in Italian until the 1950s, when it switched to English. And Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin was performed in English until the 1970s. As the Academy of Vocal Arts concert revealed this week, that was unnecessary and unfair.

In fact, Russian vowels have a beautiful quality, except for the troublesome sound of "ooo." The language has expressive diphthongs, like "yah" and "yai," and semi-vowels, like a letter that's pronounced halfway between "ee" and "eh," sort of like the middle of the English word "sin." Those sounds create a rich and melancholy atmosphere.

Russian consonants are formed in the back of the mouth, without a forward placement of tongue against the teeth as in Italian. Consequently, with the singer's tongue back and out of the way, there's more room for the vowels to resonate from the mouth up into the head.

Taking a few liberties

So last week's "Evening of Russian Romances" was a gratifying change of pace. The Academy of Vocal Arts took some liberty with that title, because one song was a drunkard's rant (bass Scott Conner rendition of Tikhon Khrennikov's "Song of the Drunkards") and a few others weren't romantic. Nevertheless, all the songs were interesting and well sung.

The Academy's two current Russian resident artists, Alexandra Maximova and Viktor Antipenko, were outstanding in their native language. But most of the other AVA singers produced idiomatic sound as well, starting with baritone Zachary Nelson in the evening's first song, Tchaikovsky's "None But the Lonely Heart."

Other highlights included a lovely floated B-natural pianissimo by soprano Sydney Mancasola in Rachmaninoff's "How Fair This Spot," and Anton Rubinstein's sensuous melody, "The Night," as sung by mezzo Olivia Vote. (That tune was adapted for Frank Sinatra's song "If You Are But a Dream" in the 1940s, and was featured prominently in Woody Allen's film, Radio Days.)

Doctor Zhivago's song

Nor should we overlook Rimsky-Korsakov's last song, "A Dream in the Summer Night," gorgeously sung by soprano Maximova; Maria Aleida's stratospheric coloratura singing of Alexander Alyabyev's "The Nightingale," from the 1840s; bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana's plaintive rendition of "The Saint Petersburg Song" by Georgy Sviridov, who lived until 1998; and the wrenching duet from Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, as belted full-out by tenor Antipenko and soprano Michelle Johnson.

(I've used English-language titles here, but everything was sung in the original Russian.)

Special attention is due to three songs by the 61-year-old Muscovite composer Vladimir Ryabov, whose work was introduced to the United States by AVA's Russian repertoire specialist, Ghenady Meirson, in the 1990s. One of them was from Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago— a song supposedly written by the fictitious doctor in the novel. Ryabov's bleak and restless music delivers quirky rhythms and unusual chromatic harmonies as well as strong melodic lines.

Meirson coached all 22 singers and accompanied them on the piano.