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It’s one thing to work freelance, but when you have a wife and child, it’s best to find a good paying job. Sergei Rachmaninov found himself a gig as music director of the Bolshoi Theater in 1904 at age 31. He could spend his time conducting the scores of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Anton Rubinstein, but it would help if he could write something for the theater. Over the next two years, Sergei wrote four one-act operas, two of which he trusted enough to assign opus numbers.

Finding videos of Russian opera is difficult. Luckily I found all five segments of one opera with subtitles, and the staging is imaginative. The first thing you will notice is that Sergei knows exactly how to write for voice and orchestra. There is neither doubt nor hesitation.

The problem with staging it today is political correctness. Rachmaninov decided to set Pushkin’s story pretty much as is. This is a very dark opera, the dominant theme is money, and one villain is a Jewish moneylender. Antisemitism was rampant in tsarist Russia, and Sergei was not to blame for the storyline. Money was to become a major theme of Sergei’s life after he came to America. He was one of the few composers who understood both the artistic side and the business side of his craft. Here it makes its first appearance.

Rachmaninov: “The Miserly Knight”, Op. 24, 1 of 5

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The vault belonging to the father of the miserly knight reminds me of Jack Benny’s vault. I was waiting for the crocodile to appear.

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The duke is dressed like a Chechen gangster. The director is having fun.

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