樂曲解說

1836 年，在他的歌劇《沙皇的一生》（或《伊凡·蘇薩寧》）取得非凡成功後，米哈伊爾·格林卡（1804-1857）立即考慮創作第二部歌劇。以普希金早期的作品《魯斯蘭與柳德米拉》為主題，格林卡希望詩人能為他準備歌詞。作曲家於 1837 年開始創作這部歌劇，歌詞尚未完成，詩人卻不幸去世，迫使他從朋友和熟人中轉向業馀詩人。不同於文學原著是用一個年輕浪子的諷刺和輕鬆幽默寫成的（普希金在還是中學學生時就開始工作，因此計劃改寫幾次），這部歌劇是史詩般、具有紀念意義的，將古老的俄羅斯野蠻人與切爾諾莫王國的東方童話氣息融為一體，豐富的人群場景襯托著主人公的著名詠嘆調，成為俄羅斯音樂寶箱中的珍寶，精彩的序曲也成就了這一切。

After the extraordinary success of his Opera “A Life for the Tsar” (or “Ivan Susanin”) in 1836, Mikhail I. Glinka (1804-1857) immediately considered composing a second opera. Pushkin’s early poetic fairy-tale “Ruslan and Lyudmilla” was to become the subject, and Glinka hoped the poet might prepare the libretto for him. The composer began work on the opera in 1837, the libretto not yet being complete and the poet’s tragic death forcing him to turn to amateur poets from among his friends and acquaintances. Unlike the literary source material which was written with the irony and light humour of a young rake (Pushkin began the work when still a lyceum pupil and planned to rewrite it several times as a result), the opera is epic in character, monumental images of Old Russian bogatyrs blended together with the fairytale oriental flavour of Chernomor’s kingdom, the abundance of crowd scenes setting off the protagonists’ famous arias which have become jewels in the treasure casket of Russian music, as has done the brilliant overture. (edition Hafabra Music)