Na vozdushnom okeane

Dmitri Hvorostovsky performs ’Na vozdushnom okeane from Rubinstein’s The Demon with Phoenix Opera Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Maestro John Massaro, during Hvorostovsky’s Gala concert at Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre Tuesday, January 10, 2012. Anton Rubinstein is remembered today for his piano piece known as ’Melody in F’, but he was also a sensational pianist and prodigious opera composer. The Demon, the best known of his nearly twenty (20) operas, is about a fallen angel, a Byronic figure who also resembles those Wagnerian heroes in need of a woman’s redemptive love. Yet his satanic nature rules out redemption as he pursues the maiden Tamara for erotic purposes. In this aria he urges her to weep over the body of her fiance’ (whose death he had in fact caused) promising, in a sweeping seductive phrase, to lead her to distant galaxies where she will be mistress of the world. On the oceans of the air, Without rudder, without sail, The harmonio