The Operatic Innovation and Musical Language of Rodion Shchedrin's Choral Opera <em>Boyarina Morozova</em>

Rodion Shchedrin is an outstanding composer who uses the deep tradition of Russian musical culture in his compositions. Shchedrin’s style is very individual and consists of the universality of world perception and originality of musical language, which encompasses a sensitive assimilation of a new, careful, and respectful approach to Russian traditions. By reasonably and fragmentarily using the elements of dodecaphony, sonorics, and aleatoric music, he developed his own musical language. Thus, the purpose of this work is to explore Shchedrin’s compositional style and to discover his innovation and individual style in the opera Boyarina Morozova. Shchedrin’s compositions are unusual: he invented the term Poetoriya (a combination of “poet” and “oratorio”); in his modern opera Not Love Alone, he uses a satirical folk song - chastushka throughout the whole opera; and he became a modern reformer of a new opera in the beginning of the 21st century, "The Russian Choral Opera, Boyarina Morozova. This was the fifth opera of Rodion Shchedrin and was composed in 2006 from his own libretto on the story of Boyarina Morozova, using texts of the 17th century that were titled "The Life of Protopop Avvakum,” “The Life of Boyarina Morozova, a Noble Woman, and Her Sister, Princess Urusova,” and “The Letters of Avvakum to Morozova and to Her Sister. The opera's story is based on one of the most terrible and tragic episodes of Russian history: the persecution of “Old Believers” (people who rejected any changes of liturgical texts and rituals introduced by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon) and the schism within the orthodoxy. The church schism was a national tragedy of the Russian people, which divided society into two warring parts; those who did not convert to the new faith were persecuted, tortured, and executed. Boyarina Morozova is not a traditional opera and is in the genre of liturgical drama and mystery that was actively revived in the 21st century. In this opera, Shchedrin conveyed the holy feat, fortitude, and self-sacrifice of a heroine in the name of her faith. The tragic moments of Russian history, the literary works of Archpriest Avvakum, the images of the noble woman Morozova and Princess Urusova, their terrible fate, deprivation, hunger, death in conjunction with Christian humility, and love - all of this was embodied in the opera of Rodion Shchedrin Boyarina Morozova.