Mikhail Glinka (jan 1, 1804 – jan 1, 1857)

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Russia's history of art music initially relied on foreign musicians who were recruited to come and perform. The first internationally recognized Russian composer was Mikhail Glinka, whose opera A life for the Tsar marked a turning point in the history of Russian music. Critics saw in this work a true expression of nationhood and a synthesis of Italianate lyricism, German complexity, and French spectacle. Politically and socially, however, A life for the Tsar was conservvative, promiting submission to the divinely ordained ruler.

Glinka sought not merely to evoke a pleasant peasant flavor or provide a tasty condiment to the main dramatic meal but, rather, to evoke an all-encompassing idea of Russia that lay at the heart of the dramatic conception. That was true narodnost' (nationhood).

Neverov called attention to Glinka's seriousness and his mastery of a self-consciously advanced international technique--the product of his cosmopolitan training--qualities with which other Russian oepra composers could not compete....To Neverov, first Russian opera, because it was teh first that was sung throughout, not a Singspiel.

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