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Aleksandr Ostrovskii (1823–1886)

Aleksandr Ostrovskii

One of the leading Russian dramatists of the nineteenth century (b. 31 March/12 April 1823 in Moscow; d. 2/14 June 1886 in Slykova), born Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovskii (Александр Николаевич Островский, Aleksandr Nikolaevič Ostrovskij, Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky).

The son of a mercantile lawyer in Moscow, Ostrovsky studed law at the University of Moscow (1840–1843), and worked for the Commercial Court in Moscow. However, his theatrical interests were also strong, and extracts from his first play A Family Affair (Семейная картина) were published in 1847. The publication, in 1850, of his play, The Bankrupt (Банкрот), under its more well-known title Among Friends One Always Comes to Terms (Свои люди сочтёмся) resulted in an uproar within the merchant class of Moscow; it was banned until 1863 and led to his dismissal from the civil service. During the following decade Ostrovskii produced many historical plays which were well-received, and he became closely associated with the Maly Theatre in Moscow, where the majority of his plays were produced under his supervision.

In 1864 Tchaikovsky wrote an overture to Ostrovskii's 1859 play The Storm, which was his first large-scale orchestral piece. Although written as a student summer exercise, according to Modest Tchaikovsky, the composer also considered setting it as the basis for an opera, but this idea was never realised. However, Ostrovskii's 1865 comedy A Dream on the Volga (Сон на Волге), did serve as the basis for Tchaikovsky's first opera, The Voevoda, Op. 3 (1867–68), with the author himself providing parts of the libretto. By this time Tchaikovsky had already supplied two short numbers of incidental music for Ostrovskii's Dmitrii the Pretender and Vasilii Shuiskii, which were performed at the premiere of that 'dramatic chronicle' in 1867.

Their next collaboration was on The Snow Maiden (1873), a musical drama commissioned by the Imperial Theatres to be written by Ostrovskii and performed with Tchaikovsky's incidental music. A few weeks before the première Ostrovskii wrote to a friend: "Tchaikovsky's music for The Snow Maiden is enchanting" [1]. Six years later, recalling his work on The Snow Maiden, Tchaikovsky would confess to Nadezhda von Meck: "This is one of my favourite creations. It was a wonderful spring; I was in good spirits, as was always the case when summer approached, and with it three months of freedom. Ostrovskii's play appealed to me, and in three weeks I wrote the music quite effortlessly. I think that in this music one can notice the joyful spring mood with which I was suffused at the time" [2]. Although Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov's operatic setting of the same subject (1881) has proved more enduring than the original, it seems that Ostrovskii himself preferred Tchaikovsky's music. According to Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov: "It was with a special heartfelt warmth that Aleksandr Nikolaevich would talk about Tchaikovsky's music for The Snow Maiden, which evidently hindered him significantly in his appreciation of Rimskii-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden. […] No doubt, Tchaikovsky's uncomplicated, sincere music, which lacked the glaring contrapuntal costume of Rimskii-Korsakov, was closer to Ostrovskii's heart, and he did not conceal the fact that as a narodnik [friend of the people] he felt a greater affinity with it" [3].

In 1874 Ostrovskii became the first president of the Society of Russian Playwrights, and in 1885 he was named artistic director for the Moscow Imperial Theatres. Shortly after this, in 1886, he communicated a request to Tchaikovsky via an intermediary to provide music to accompany a scene in The Voevoda—not the composers's first opera, but a revised version (1885) of Ostrovski's original play A Dream on the Volga.

Settings of works by Aleksandr Ostrovskii:

• The Storm (Гроза): a play in five acts (1859) — in 1864 Tchaikovsky first considered an opera on this subject (TH 204), before writing an overture to the drama instead (TH 36).
• A Dream on the Volga (Сон на Волге) (1865): a comedy in five acts, with prologue — this was the subject of Tchaikovsky's first opera The Voevoda, Op. 3 (TH 1), written in 1867–68, with Ostrovskii providing part of the libretto, and the composer supplying the remaining text. Ostrovskii's play was revised in 1886 as The Voevoda [see below].
• Dmitrii the Pretender and Vasilii Shuiskii (Дмитрий Самозванец и Василий Шуйский): a dramatic chronicle in two parts (1866) — Tchaikovsky provided an Introduction and Mazurka (TH 16) for a stage production of the play in February 1867.
• The Snow Maiden (Снегурочка) (1873): a spring legend in four acts with prologue — Tchaikovsky provided the substantial incidental music (TH 19) to accompany the first production of the spectacle in May 1873.
• The Voevoda (Воевода) (1885): scenes from 17th-century folk life in five acts, with prologue — a revised version of A Dream on the Volga (1865); Tchaikovsky composed a short melodrama (TH 22) to accompany the Domovoi's monologue in a stage production of the play in January 1886.

Tchaikovsky's correspondence with Aleksandr Ostrovskii:

• 9 letters from the composer to Aleksandr Ostrovskii have survived, dating from 1867 to 1886.

Notes:

1. Letter from the playwright to Fedor Burdin, 21 April/3 May 1873. Quoted from А. Н. Островский, Полное собрание сочинений (Moscow 1949-1953), vol. 14, p. 13. [back]
2. Letter 1352 to Nadezhda von Meck, 24 November/6 December–25 November/7 December 1879 [back]
3. Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, 50 лет русской музыки в моих воспоминаниях (1934), chapter XV. Here quoted from А. Н. Островский в воспоминаниях современников (1966), p. 430. [back]