Firma Melodiya presents a complete recording of the great Russian music epic – the opera Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin.
It took Borodin nineteen years to compose this opera based on the old Russian epic poem The Tale of Igor's Campaign and also incorporating material from other sources. Eternally busy, the author combined composing with a chair in chemistry and active social life and never finished the work. Prince Igor reached us thanks to the effort of the composer's friends Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov who managed to complete Borodin's masterpiece. The characters of courageous commander Prince Igor, his faithful and wise wife Yaroslavna, the prince's ardent son Vladimir and reckless Prince of Galich; objective portrayal of a hostile yet in a way attractive world of Polovtsians with their ruler Khan Konchak and his passionate daughter Konchakovna, an epic power of choral scenes, a riot of rhythms in Polovtsian Dances – the multitude of individual bright episodes from Borodin's opera makes up a complex yet harmonious whole.
Unfortunately, the most of the stage productions and recordings of the opera greatly reduced. This recording made in 1969 by the USSR Bolshoi Theatre and a galaxy of outstanding soloists such as Ivan Petrov, Elena Obraztsova, Vladimir Atlantov, Alexander Vedernikov, Arthur Eisen and others, and conducted by Mark Ermler is the only one featuring the music of the opera in its entirety.
