The Invisible City of Kitezh, completed in 1905, is a remarkable opera that fuses folklore, mysticism and realism. Its subject is the story of the advancing Mongol army's entry to Great Kitezh and the city's subsequent miraculous survival. Rejecting archaisms and the more religiously inclined suggestions of his librettist, Rimsky-Korsakov sought to create an opera that is "contemporary and even fairly advanced". It is therefore through-composed, hinting at times at Wagnerian procedure, and flooded with the composer's rich, apt and brilliant orchestral palette, fully supportive of the powerful vocal writing.
Part 3
Act III Tableau 1
1 Zdravy bud'te, lyudi kitezhane
2 Fyodor! Druzhe!
3 Kak? Kak ona?
4 O, slava, bogatstvo suetnoe
5 Chudnaya nebesnaya tsaritsa
6 Pyl' stolbom podnyalas' do neba
7 Okh, strashna desnitsa Bozhiya
8 Gore, gore gradu Kitezhu
9 Byti Kitezhu razgrablenu
10 Chudnaya nebesnaya tsaritsa
11 Da svershitsya Bozhiya
12 Podnyalasya s polunochi
13 Chto zh stoim my, syostry?
Act III Tableau 2
14 Vot dubrava ta
15 Oy zhe, vy murzy tatarskie
16 Ne vorony, ne golodnye
17 Akh, ty milyy zhenikh moy
18 Slysh'ty, devitsa
19 Net, gudit, gudit proklyatyy zvon
20 Otchego "ne day Bog", Grishen'ka?
21 Stupay, Gospoden' rab
22 Oy, golubchiki, na vole ya