I'm presuming you're referring to "Zashem zhe eti slyozy" ("Soon it will
be midnight"), and not to Lisa's scene and arioso (Och polnoch
blizitsya...Ach, istomilas ja gorem). If so....
The wonderful Russian soprano Maria Gavrilova sings it on a CD called
BOLSHOI-GALA on the BMG/Melodiya label. I saw/heard Gavrilova as Tatiana
in EUGENE ONEGIN, and fell in love with her voice and dramatic abilities.
I expect she does a wonderful rendition of this seldom-recorded aria.
I vaguely remember it also being on the Galina Gorchakova solo CD of
Tchaikovsky and Verdi arias (on Philips),
Another good choice would be Raina Kabaivanska's version, on her
eponymous CD on Eklipse Records.
Also worth considering is the rendering by underrated British soprano Kyra
Vane, who is coming back into vogue, on the Preiser "Lebendige
Vergangenheit" CD devoted to her.
It also appears on the CD SOPRANOS IN THE GRAND TRADITION, sung by the
great Sena Jurinac (presumably in Russian, but I cannot guarantee this; on
the EMI Classics label). Or, if you'd rather have an album of Jurinac
alone, there is a CD of her singing R. Strauss' Four Last Songs (for which
she was well-known), and arias by Mozart and others, which also includes
the Pique Dame aria - it's the SENA JURINAC cd on EMI's "References"
series.
It's also sung by Stefka Evstatieva on a CD called RUSSIAN MUSIC AND
REVOLUTION on Sony Classics, which features operatic and non-operatic
music.
Inessa Galante sings the aria on her HEROINES CD, on Campion Records.
Galante, if you're not familiar with her, has a glorious lyric soprano
voice which has proved occasionally problematical in the opera house, but
which is flaweless and sheer pleasure to listen to on her studio
recordings. If, however, you do prefer live recordings, Galante also sings
the aria on the recording of her Russian Recital at Wigmore Hall (also on
Campion Records).
For a more arcane recording, it's sung by turn-of-the-20th-century Italian
soprano Medea Mei-Figner (who?) on a CD called ITALIAN SOPRANOS OF THE
BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, on the Minerva label). This album also
features much better known sopranos like Luisa Tetrazzini, Adelina Patti,
and Emma Albani. I suspect, however, that the aria is sung in Italian on
this CD, as that would be the language the opera was performed in in
Italy back then (and even in some Italian houses today). The same
recording is remastered on the SYMPOSIUM OPERA COLLECTION, VOL. 1&2 CD
(Symposium label), which is devoted to Medea Mei-Figner and her husband
Nikolay Figner, a Russian tenor - so who knows, maybe Mei-Figner does the
aria in Russian after all.
You can hear the aria in German by the fantastic dramatic soprano Emmy
Destinn, again from early in the last century, on the Pearl/Koch CD
devoted to her. There is another German-language version, sung by the
noted soprano Ljuba Welitsch, on the CD GREAT VOICES OF THE 50s (on London
Classics), and yet another rendering in German, by soprano Maria Cebotari,
appears on the Preiser "LV" CD devoted to her.
As for complete recordings of the opera, I would first strongly urge you
to get the Unitel video of the glorious 1983 Bolshoi production, starring
the magnificent Vladimir Atlantov as Ghermann. This is a stunning,
beatifully sung and acted production, with Atlantov giving what may have
been *the* performance of his not-too-shabby career.
You could do worse, on CD, than the Kirov recording conducted by Gergiev.
This is not my favourite by a long chalk, but that is because I was
fortunate enough to find second-hand the out-of-print Melodiya/Philips
recording of the Bolshoi conducted by Mark Ermler and featuring Atlantov
as Hermann and Milashkina as Lisa.
Karen Mercedes
............................
NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ I sing hymns with my spirit, +
+ but I also sing hymns with my mind. +
+ - 1 Corinthians 14:15 +
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