Oda Slobodskaya "The statue of Pushkin"

Oda Slobodskaya sings "The statue of Pushkin at Tszarskoye selo" a short but touching song by Cesar Cui.

Slobodskaya was born in Vilnius, then part of Russia, and studied with the formidable Natalia Iretskaya, herself a pupil of Pauline Viardot Garcia. She sang major roles in the Mariinsky theatre St Petersburg but after the Revolution and subsequent famine, she left Russia with Fyodor Chaliapin when he brought his own opera company to the west.

She eventually married and settled in London where she enjoyed great success as both a concert and opera singer. She continued to give entertaining recitals of Russian songs well into her seventies and was a witty and characterful narrator of Peter and the Wolf.

The photograph of the statuette is reproduced by kind permission of stuartliff who also provided the translation.

A maiden drops her urn full of water;
It breaks on the rocks.
She sits sadly,
holding the broken pieces.

A miracle! The water does not dry up;
It pours from the broken vessel.
Now she sits there sadly forever
over the everlasting spring.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Oda
• Slobodskaya
• Russian
• Song
• Tchaikovsky
• Cesar
• Cui
• Mariinsky
• Theatre
• St
• Petersburg
• Ivor
• Newton
• piano

[CharlotteinWeimar]

A maiden drops her urn full of water;

It breaks on the rocks.

She sits sadly,

holding the broken pieces.

A miracle! The water does not dry up;

It pours from the broken vessel.

Now she sits there sadly forever

over the everlasting spring.

(courtesy of stuartliff)

[Kievest]

Fleeting golden moments, but oh, the exquisite poetry and excruciating emotion!

Slobodskaya sings as if she wrote the piece herself with infinite sensitivity,

empathy, clarity and revelation. Pushkin was one of the most staggering

geniuses of any era...quintessentially Russian but with global appeal and

influence. He could bring a stone statue to its knees with emotion! First

time hearing Cui's song...Thank you, Yvonne!

[mayatatyana1]

How very beautiful. Thank you for posting and thank you Doug@CurzonRoad for sharing. Maya

[basenjidiva]

@stuartliff  I agree with you completely!

[basenjidiva]

Simply beautiful!  Thank you for sending...

[stuartliff]

Truly lovely. A perfect combintaion of poem, voice and music. Can one even begin to imagine Russian culture without Pushkin? It would be even more difficult to contemplate than Britain without Shakespeare.

Thank you for a charming presentation.

Vivian

[Addiobelpassato]

simply wonderful!