Analysis
As with A Life for the Tsar, Ruslan employs some aspects of Russian folk music; it is also noted for imaginative use of dissonance, chromaticism, and Eastern elements. Of particular consequence is the use of the whole tone scale for the first time in Russian music. It is particularly associated thematically with Chernomor and, as a result, became so popular among Russian composers for suggesting evil or ominous personages or situations, that even today Russian musicians refer to the whole tone scale as gamma Chernomora, or "Chernomor's scale".
The rollicking overture is one of the best known orchestral showpieces in the West. An orchestral feature of Act I is the use of piano and harp to suggest the timbre of the gusli. Glinka's debt to Western operatic models is abundantly apparent in Farlaf's Rondo, a Russian emulation of Figaro's "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's The Barber of Seville.
Glinka's variation treatment of folk melody crystallized in Ruslan into what has been called his influential "changing background technique", used, for example, in Finn's ballad and the Head's narrative, but seen to best advantage in the Persian Chorus that opens Act 3, where the tune remains intact through five statements while the orchestral background is changed completely on each repetition.
Along with its counterpart A Life for the Tsar, this second opera by Glinka confirmed a Russian national operatic foundation that was to be built upon by the next generation of Russian composers. In particular, Ruslan served as the model for Russian operatic fairy tales, particularly those of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Read more about this topic: Ruslan And Lyudmila (opera)
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