Rimsky-Korsakov's operas are not so well represented in the catalogue that one can afford to give anything but a welcome to this complete version from the Maryinsky company, for all its drawbacks. Sadko is a panoramic work, packed with numbers, rather less packed with event or with character, as RL points out in his helpful introductory note. It has had a good following in Russia: I once saw a sumptuous production before a huge audience in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, on a stage so vast that I did not at first notice the presence of six horses. With as much stage splendour as possible to help it along, it can make a pleasant enough evening, but much of it is static, and consists of the various characters delivering themselves of a song or a ballad or an address. These are reasonably well contrasted, partly because of Rimsky-Korsakov's skills in drawing on different Russian influences and in differentiating between a simple tonal language for the real world and a more chromatic idiom for the seductive realm of the Sea King (Okean-More) and his daughter Volkhova (points made in the essays by Detlef Gojowy and Catherine Steinegger). It needs a numerous and strong cast who can make the most of its opportunities.
Sadko himself is sung by Vladimir Galusin pretty steadily at full volume. There is not a lot of subtlety in Sadko's nature, and he is indeed a hero: Gojowy thinks him somewhere between Peter the Great, Columbus and Siegfried, which may be stretching things a bit. The full heroic blast here is too seldom modified for the addresses to Volkhova. Galusin settles down a little as the opera proceeds, and by Act 3 is finding a somewhat more pacific manner. Valentina Tsidipova returns his advances, and makes her own, with a good feeling for line, if one can overcome resistance to the steady vibrato that sits upon it, a manner long familiar with Slavonic sopranos and found here also with Sadko's abandoned but eventually restored wife Lyubava, Marianna Tarassova. The Sea King is strongly sung by Sergei Alexashkin, truculent at first but warming his tone somewhat as he comes to accept Sadko. The incidental contributions vary in quality. The Varangian (or Viking) Merchant is finely delivered by Bulat Minjelkiev, and Alexander Gergalov sings the equivalent song of the Venetian Merchant agreeably. But it is a pity that the best-known number from the opera, the song of the Indian Merchant, should be sung as half-heartedly as it is by Gegam Grigorian. There is much more character in the ballad near the opening by the gusli player Nezhata. Rimsky-Korsakov took the idea of a repeated melodic phrase over a changing background from Glinka, and the Finn in Ruslan and Ludmilla, but it is done with all the orchestral skill the old wizard could muster, and strongly delivered by Larissa Diadkova.
Valery Gergiev leads his forces well, and draws some vigorous, colourful singing from the choruses in their various manifestations. There is however, a good deal of noise occasioned by the many stage comings and goings, with clumpings and hoarse whisperings as well as tunings-up and applause. The recording has difficulty in catching all the singers equally in their various peregrinations across the stage, but for the most part this is a fair representation of a score that is nothing if not colourful. There is a transliteration, with English, French and German translations. Despite the set's shortcomings, collectors of Russian opera will doubtless want to add it to their shelves, as there is unlikely to be another one for a very long time.'