Opera The Golden Cockerel Program Notes, Sheet Music and Recordings

Program Notes & Analysis

A Fairy Tale with Blood on its Claws

When Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov began composing The Golden Cockerel in 1906, he was not the "safe" national treasure he is often remembered as. He was an angry man. In 1905, he had been summarily fired from his professorship at the St. Petersburg Conservatory for publicly supporting students who were part of the 1905 Revolution. He was, for a time, a persona non grata of the state. This experience radicalized him. For his final opera, he chose his weapon with care. He and his librettist, Vladimir Belsky, turned to Alexander Pushkin's 1834 poem, a seemingly innocent fairy tale, and transformed it into a brutal, unambiguous satire of Russian autocracy. Tsar Dodon is not just a "bumbling" king; he is a stupid, lazy, and cruel despot. His sons are fools. His general is a sycophant. His people are servile and sheeplike. The opera was a direct, pointed attack on Tsar Nicholas II, whose disastrous leadership had just led to a humiliating, catastrophic defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The parallels were so obvious that the Imperial censors immediately banned the opera from production. The ensuing battle with the censors consumed the last year of Rimsky-Korsakov's life, and he died in 1908, never having heard his final masterpiece performed.

A New, "Modern" Sound: The Legacy of the "Handful"

The Golden Cockerel is the magnificent culmination of the "Mighty Handful's" nationalist project, but it is also a giant leap into 20th-century modernism. Rimsky-Korsakov, the great master of "magic" opera, creates two distinct musical worlds, a technique he perfected in The Tale of Tsar Saltan. The "human" world of Tsar Dodon and his court is "Russian." It is intentionally primitive, clumsy, and diatonic, based on simple, repetitive folk-like melodies. Dodon's music is buffoonish and heavy-footed. The "magical" world, however, is a different universe. It belongs to the Queen of Shemakha and the Astrologer. Their music is "exotic," "oriental," and brilliantly "unnatural." It is built on the same "magic" scales (whole-tone and octatonic) that Glinka had pioneered in Ruslan and Lyudmila. This "supernatural" harmony is chromatic, sinuous, and dazzlingly orchestrated, full of harps, celesta, and shimmering woodwinds. It is this "magic" music that would form the entire basis for the "Russian" sound of his most famous pupil, Igor Stravinsky, whose 1910 ballet The Firebird is, in many ways, a direct and brilliant extension of The Golden Cockerel.

The "Anti-Opera" of Diaghilev

When the opera was finally premiered in Paris in 1914 by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, it was in a famously bizarre and revolutionary production. Diaghilev, who found the opera's action too "static," staged it as an "opera-ballet." The singers, dressed in robes, sat in two rows at the sides of the stage, while the action was mimed and danced by ballet dancers in the center. This radical separation of "voice" and "body" highlighted the opera's central theme: its "unreality." The Prologue and Epilogue, sung by the Astrologer, reinforce this. He steps "out of the opera" and tells the audience that what they are about to see is just a "fable," a "trick," and that in the end, "only he and the Queen were real." This "anti-realism" was a perfect fit for the 20th century's modernist, "anti-Wagnerian" sensibilities, and it deeply influenced Stravinsky’s own "staged" works like Renard and Les Noces.

The Astrologer: The Sound of the "Other"

The Astrologer is one of the strangest characters in opera. He is a "eunuch," and Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the part for a tenore altino—an impossibly high, almost unnatural-sounding tenor voice. His music is high, thin, and built on the "magic" octatonic scale. He is the "supernatural" force that sets the plot in motion. He gives the Tsar the Golden Cockerel, a "technology" that will solve all his problems, but he warns him that he will return to claim his "payment." He is the agent of fate, a cold, calculating figure who stands outside the "human" world of Dodon's court.

The Queen of Shemakha: The Ultimate "Femme Fatale"

The opera's entire second act is given over to the Queen of Shemakha, one of the most difficult and spectacular roles ever written for a coloratura soprano. If Tsar Dodon represents the "stupidity" of the state, the Queen represents the "other"—the exotic, the sensual, the amoral, and the unknowable East. Dodon finds her in a misty gorge, next to the bodies of his two sons, who have killed each other for her. She is the ultimate femme fatale. Her music is a masterpiece of "oriental" seduction. Her famous "Hymn to the Sun" ("Otvet' mne, zorkoye svetilo") is not an "aria" in the Italian sense; it is a long, sinuous, and hypnotic "incantation." It is a piece of breathtaking vocal difficulty, a shimmering, chromatic, and rhythmically free melody that seems to float, disembodied, over the orchestra. Her seduction of the bumbling, idiotic Dodon is a scene of pure, dark comedy, as she forces him to sing and dance for her, completely humiliating him in front of his own army, before agreeing to marry him and, in doing so, sealing his doom.

A Satire That Kills

The Golden Cockerel is a comedy where everyone dies. It is Rimsky-Korsakov's final, bitter laugh at the world. The Tsar's sons kill each other over the Queen. The Tsar, in a fit of petulant rage, refuses to pay the Astrologer his promised reward (the Queen herself) and murders him. Then, in the opera's climax, the Golden Cockerel, the instrument of fate, fulfills its purpose. It swoops down from its perch, pecks the Tsar on the head, and kills him instantly. A sudden darkness falls, and when the lights return, both the Queen and the Cockerel have vanished. The opera ends with the people, leaderless, wailing in a chorus of profound, servile despair: "What will we do without our Tsar? Woe is us!" It is a final, devastating indictment of a populace that cannot live without the very autocrat who destroyed them. The opera is Rimsky-Korsakov's final, prophetic, and most brilliant warning, a true "fairy tale for a revolution."

The Story of the Opera

Prologue

A mysterious Astrologer steps before the curtain. He tells the audience that, although they are about to see a "fable from a bygone age," it has a "moral, a good lesson" for them. He, and the Queen, are the only "real" people in the story.

Act I: Tsar Dodon's Palace

The lazy, aging, and inept Tsar Dodon complains to his Boyars (nobles) that his kingdom is constantly being attacked. He is too old and fat to lead an army and wants a way to "rule lying in bed." He asks his two sons for advice. The first, Prince Gvidon, suggests they disband the army and then re-form it at the last minute. The second, Prince Afron, suggests they just pull the army back to the capital and defend it. General Polkan, the only competent (if blustering) man in the room, tells them they are both idiots. As they argue, the Astrologer appears. He offers the Tsar a "gift": a magical Golden Cockerel. If there is peace, the Cockerel will sit silently. But if danger approaches, it will crow, "Kiri-ku-ku! Beware, beware!" Dodon is overjoyed. He offers the Astrologer any reward he wants. The Astrologer says he will not claim his reward now, but will ask for it later, a promise the Tsar gladly makes. The Tsar, delighted, dismisses his council and goes to bed, lulled to sleep by his housekeeper, Amelfa. Suddenly, the Cockerel screams its warning: "Beware! The enemy is at the gates!" The entire court is thrown into chaos as they try to arm the sleeping, grumbling Tsar. His sons are sent off to lead the army, and Dodon goes back to sleep. But the Cockerel screams again. Now, Dodon himself must go to war. He is awkwardly squeezed into his rusty armor and, with his army, shuffles off to battle.

Act II: A Desolate Mountain Pass

Night. Tsar Dodon and General Polkan arrive in a dark, misty gorge. They are horrified to find their entire army has been slaughtered. In the center of the field, they find the bodies of Dodon's two sons, Gvidon and Afron—they have apparently dueled and killed each other. Dodon breaks into a loud, theatrical lament. As dawn breaks, the mist clears, and they see a strange, magnificent tent. From the tent emerges a beautiful, exotic woman: the Queen of Shemakha. She sings her famous, hypnotic "Hymn to the Sun," a seductive greeting. Dodon, a bumbling fool, is instantly captivated. She tells him she has come to "conquer" his kingdom, not with an army, but with her beauty. She proceeds to completely seduce and humiliate the old Tsar, describing her own naked beauty in a second aria. She makes him sing and, finally, she makes him dance—a clumsy, oafish dance that makes his own soldiers laugh. Completely under her spell, he offers her his hand, his throne, and his kingdom. The act ends with the royal procession returning to the capital, with the Queen as the new Tsarina.

Act III: The Capital

The people are gathered in the street, anxiously awaiting the Tsar's return. The royal wedding procession enters. It is a grotesque, magnificent spectacle. Tsar Dodon is blissful. At that moment, the Astrologer appears. He has come to claim his reward. He tells the Tsar, "You promised me anything. I want... the Queen of Shemakha!" Dodon is furious. He first offers the Astrologer half his kingdom, but the Astrologer refuses. He wants the Queen. Dodon, in a fit of petulant, autocratic rage, strikes the Astrologer on the head with his scepter, killing him. The Queen laughs. The sky darkens. The Golden Cockerel, on its perch, lets out a final, terrifying cry, "Kiri-ku-ku! I'll peck you on the crown!" It swoops down from the spire, pecks Dodon once on the head, and the Tsar falls dead. A sudden, total darkness covers the stage. We hear the Queen laugh, "Ha ha ha!" When the lights return, the Queen, the Astrologer, and the Cockerel have all vanished. The people are left, leaderless, lament_ing: "Woe is us! Woe! What will we do now without our Tsar?"

Epilogue

The Astrologer steps back in front of the curtain, as in the Prologue. He tells the audience not to be sad. The story was just a "phantom, a pale dream." In the whole, dark fable, he says, "Only the Queen and I were real."