Episode 356. Get to Know Irina Arkhipova
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Directly after the disastrous November election in the United States, I compiled a setlist for two episodes self-explanitorially entitled “Mezzos on the Verge” and “Mezzos in Extremis.” One of the featured singers was the great Russian mezzo-soprano Irina Arkhipova, whose 100th birthday on January 2 of this year was one of the few positive things to happen in January! I happened to have a number of LPs featuring Arkhipova, and this episode features material from a number of those records, plus a CD reissue from a few years back entitled “The Art of Irina Arkhipova,” which features the 1970 recording of Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov songs that the singer made in Moscow with my teacher John Wustman while they were judges in that year’s Tchaikovsky Competition. Arkhipova is also featured in songs by Tchaikovsky; Russian opera arias by Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky; and selections from both Carmen and Il Trovatore, which feature tenors Zurab Andzhaparidzye and Vladislav Piavko, the latter of whom was also Arkhipova’s protégé (and later husband).
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Lev Aleksandrovich Mey [after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]: Нет, только тот, кто знал [None but the lonely heart], Op. 6/6. Semyon Stuchevsky [1965]
Georges Bizet, Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy [after Prosper Mérimée]: Près des remparts de Séville (Carmen) [sung in Russian]. Zurab Andzhaparidzye, Alexander Melik-Pashayev, Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater [early 1960s]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Afanasy Afanas’yevich Fet: В молчаньи ночи тайной [In the silence of the night], Op. 4/3. John Wustman [1970]
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov [after Alexander Ostrovsky]: Lel’s First Song (Snegurochka). Alexander Melik-Pashayev, Bolshoi Theater Orchestra [1963]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Aleksandra Santagano-Gorchakova [after Édouard Turquety]: Серенада. Ты куда летишь, как птица [Serenade. Whither are you flying], Op. 65/1. Semyon Stuchevsky [1965]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Aleksandra Santagano-Grchakova [after Augustine-Malvina Souville Blanchecotte]: Слёзы [Tears], Op. 65/5. Semyon Stuchevsky [1965]
Modest Mussorgsky: As a young girl [Marfa’s Aria] (Khovanshchina). Boris Khaikin, Bolshoi Theater Orchestra [1963]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Daniil Rathaus: В эту лунную ночь [In this moonlit night], Op. 73/3. Igor Guselnikov [1978]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Daniil Rathaus: Ночь [Night], Op. 73/2. Igor Guselnikov [1978]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Daniil Rathaus: Снова, как прежде [Again, as before, alone], Op. 73/6. Igor Guselnikov [1978]
Anton Arensky, Alexander Pushkin: Zarema’s Aria (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai). Alexander Melik-Pashayev, Bolshoi Theater Orchestra [1963]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Alexander Pushkin: Не пой, красавица [Oh, do not sing to me again], Op. 4-4. John Wustman [1970]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Aleksey Pleshcheyev [after Heinrich Heine]: Сон [A Dream], Op. 8/5. John Wustman [1970]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Aleksei Apukhtin [after Alfred de Musset]: Отрывок из А. Мюссе [Fragment from Musset], Op. 21/6. John Wustman [1970]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Aleksey Pleshcheyev [after Heinrich Heine]: Дитя, как цветок ты прекрасна [Child, you are as beautiful as a flower], Op. 8/2. John Wustman [1970]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Ekaterina Beketova: Сирень [Lilacs], Op. 21/5. John Wustman [1970]
Sergei Rachmaninov, Maria Davidova: Я жду тебя [I wait for you], Op. 14/1. John Wustman [1970]
Giuseppe Verdi, Salvadore Cammarano (after Antonio García Gutiérrez): Condotta ell’era in ceppi (Il trovatore). Vladislav Piavko, Boris Khaikin, Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra [1971]
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Pimpinella, Op. 38/6. Semyon Stuchevsky [1965]