A significant date in the history of Russian music is December 9, 1836, when the premiere of the first Russian national opera “Life for the Tsar” took place, which many know by its alternate title – “Ivan Susanin.” This does not imply that before Glinka, no one in Russia had the idea to compose an opera. Prior to him, works in this genre were attempted by Alexei Verstovsky (“Askold’s Grave”), Alexander Alyabyev (“The Storm”), Mikhail Sokolovsky (“The Miller – Wizard, Deceiver, and Matchmaker” – the first Russian opera to survive to this day), among others. Glinka's innovation and sincere desire lay in addressing a plot drawn from Russian life. The prominent music journalist of that era, Vladimir Odoevsky, immediately noted that with the premiere of this production, a “new period in art, a period of Russian music” had begun. He was absolutely right.
The plot of the opera is well-known to many: the year 1613, the Polish intervention, the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin leads the Poles into the forest, thus saving the life of the future Tsar Mikhail Romanov, but sacrificing his own. The story is based on real events. Later, Susanin's heroism in the name of the monarch would turn against the opera.
In 1917, for understandable reasons, the first Russian national opera also effectively gave its life for the tsar – it was removed from the repertoires of all theaters. Glinka, of course, could not have known that 80 years after the premiere of the opera, a revolution would occur, overthrowing the tsar from the Russian throne, and that no one would want to sacrifice their life for him, while the originally patriotic plot would become unwelcome to the new authorities.
One of the great domestic operatic works faced a 22-year oblivion. The history of music, of course, has seen “gaps in memory” even more pronounced, as was the case with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. On February 27, 1939, the opera experienced a second birth, albeit under a different title “Ivan Susanin.” In order for Soviet citizens to become acquainted with Glinka's great music, several changes had to be made to the libretto. The author of the “non-monarchic” text was Sergey Gorodetsky, whose version of the opera is still performed in some theaters today.
The opera was reborn for the third time in 1989 – the first edition of “Life for the Tsar” returned to the stage with the text by Baron Yegor Rozen. By the time of perestroika, the deed of Ivan Susanin and the glorification of the tsar were no longer red flags for anyone, just as they are today. Moreover, the final famous chorus “Glory!” has been the official melody of the inauguration of the President of the Russian Federation since 2000 and is played annually during the Victory Parade on May 9.