MIKHAIL VRUBEL’S "THE SWAN PRINCESS": "Unlock this secret, Tsar..." *

* Quoted from: Libretto by Vladimir Belsky (after Pushkin) to the opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” by Rimsky-Korsakov. See: http://az.lib.ru/b/belxskij_w_i/text_1900_skazka_o_tzare_saltane.shtml

The composition “The Swan Princess” (Tretyakov Gallery) was produced by Mikhail Vrubel in 1900, when he was designing sets for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas at Savva Mamontov’s Russian Private Opera. Like the images from the “Demon” series, this painting projects an inscrutable magnetism. Many mysteries remain about both the history of the creation of the painting and the image of the enchanting bird maiden from the fairy tale. Among the most important of these is the identity of the model for the fair Swan Princess. Does the composition indeed feature Nadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel - the artist’s wife and muse, as well as a splendid opera diva who performed the Swan Princess in Rimsky- Korsakov’s opera - or is it a composite image born of the artist’s imagination?

Mikhail VRUBEL. The Swan Princess. 1900
Oil on canvas. 142.5 × 93.5 cm.
© Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Detail

Before producing “The Swan Princess”, the artist spent many years searching for a Russian national motif, for “the music of an entire person”, as he put it[1]. This idea materialised in the images of mighty knights from Russian epic tales (the panel “Mikula Selyaninovich and the Volga” (1896, present location unknown) and the panel “Bogatyr” (1899, Russian Museum)). Vrubel was working on them at the same time as he was designing sets for Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas “Sadko” (1897) and “The Tsar’s Bride” (1899). In 1898, Vrubel wrote to the composer: “Thanks to your benign influence, I have decided to devote myself solely to the genre of Russian fairy tales”[2]. Their creative collaboration began in December 1897, when Vrubel was working with Konstantin Korovin and Sergei Malyutin to produce sets for “Sadko”. Nadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel, the painter’s wife, was, at that time, rehearsing the role of Olga in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Maid of Pskov” and auditioning for that of Volkhova. Although the first two performances of “Sadko” featured another prima donna of the Private Opera, Emilia Negrin-Schmidt, on the third night, the Sea King’s daughter Volkhova was performed by Zabela, who enthralled the opera’s composer with her soulfulness. Mikhail Gnessin recalled: “No, having seen this creature once, you couldn’t but fall under her spell for good! Those magical eyes set wide apart, the captivatingly feminine, invitingly ingenuous smile, the slender and lithe body, beautiful long arms<...>. I wished the Sea Princess <...> would become part of the listeners’ and viewers’ lives and remain with them for good! Those who saw Zabela-Vrubel’s performance as Volkhova experienced these emotions with special intensity!”[3]. The creative union of the composer, the painter and the brilliant singer opened a new chapter in music and visual art, devoted to the “intimate national undertone”[4] that provided so much inspiration for Vrubel. Rimsky-Korsakov’s score was also a strong stimulant that awakened in the painter the special synthetic vision that brought his art into this world.

When Alexander Pushkin’s centenary was celebrated in 1899, Vrubel contributed some of the illustrations to an edition of his collected works. In March 1899, he wrote to his sister Anna: “...my Bogatyr has still to find a buyer, and I had to get down to the Pushkin illustrations right away[5], and now I’m painting a fireplace for Mamontov to keep my finances in order.”[6]. Also in March, commissioned by Princess Maria Tenisheva, Vrubel painted the first set of balalaikas[7] for the 1900 Paris Exposition, which is clear from his letter to his sister[8]. The art historian A.P. Ivanov, a contemporary of Vrubel, reminisced in his monograph: “In March next year [1899 - V.B.], Vrubel, on assignment for Princess Tenisheva, painted several bala I aikas produced at the artisan workshop in Talash- kino; these small images painted with oil on wood feature: a swan princess emerging from the dark blue depths of a lake; a mermaid peering from the water; an ancient knight combatting a dragon.”[9]. In fact, it was on a balalaika that Vrubel first produced the image of the Swan Princess emerging from the dark blue depths of a lake. One would imagine that the painter’s choice of subject was not inadvertent as, at that time, he was working on illustrations for Pushkin’s collected works and probably reading the poet’s masterpieces again and again. A new opera contemplated by Rimsky-Korsakov is first mentioned in the composer’s letter to Zabela on June 11, 1899: “Sure enough, my new opera will have a role for a lyrical soprano, I cannot do without it any more, so let other composers do without it. My opera is progressing quickly.”[10] It is easy to discern in his words the special importance he attached to the singer’s talent, mentioning her “lyrical soprano” as a necessary element for creating a holistic musical picture. When Rimsky-Korsakov began composing the score for “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, only a small circle of people, including Zabela, knew about it. In one of his letters, Rimsky-Korsakov asked her to keep this information a secret: “I ask you, my dear Nadezhda Ivanovna, to refrain for a while from mentioning to anyone that I’m working on an opera. At the moment, people in the know include only my family, the librettist, Lyadov, and Glazunov[11]. I merely vaguely hinted to Savva Ivanovich about it in one of my letters.”[12] In early July 1899, at Teni- sheva’s invitation, Vrubel, Zabela and the latter's accompanist, B.K. Yanovsky, all visited the Talashkino estate.

In Talashkino, Vrubel produced Tenisheva’s portrait as a Valkyrie (1899, Odessa Art Museum Ukraine) and, according to Tenisheva’s account, “by way of a joke, he sketched several images on balalaika frames and soundboards, replete with stunningly rich colours and imagery.”[13] As there is no specific date referenced in Tenisheva’s memoirs, we can only guess that having finished painting three balalaikas in March 1899, Vrubel perhaps painted two others and produced 10 sketches for future similar jobs. Among the surviving sketches, of special interest is a picture featuring the Swan Princess (Abramtsevo Museum). This composition differs only slightly from the images on a balalaika that Vrubel produced in March 1899. Sailing over waves, the Swan Princess’s figure is turned right and depicted against a pale-cinnabarine sky, with the sun disappearing over the tops of stylised spruces.

Rimsky-Korsakov passed the first fragment of the Swan Princess’s lines to Zabela on November 23, 1899, with the inscription: “To dear Nadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel, to introduce my opera to her - the part of the Swan. N.R.-Korsakov”[14]. Perhaps it was from that moment on that the artist’s and the singer’s attention became wholly focused on the world of Pushkin’s fairy tale, illuminated with the image of the enchanting Princess. When the existence of the opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, was, to use the composer’s phrase, no longer a secret, its production at the Private Opera was scheduled for a new season in 1900.

Vrubel began his work on “The Swan Princess” in early April 1900, when he returned to Moscow after the Private Opera’s long tour in Kyiv (February 22 - March 26). While he was working on it, Vrubel’s new work caught the imagination of Yekaterina Ge, who was visiting the Vrubels in their apartment at 39, Prechistenka at the time. Another person aware of the new painting was Rimsky-Korsakov, who wrote to Zabela on April 8: “I am interested to see how Mikhail Alexandrovich’s Swan will come out.”[15] Apparently, the painter was excited by the forthcoming project to design sets for the fairy-tale opera, and this is what brought about one of his most engaging works. Vrubel completed the painting very quickly because, on April 19, Zabela had already written to her sister with disappointment: “Misha has already sold the Swan Princess and, sure enough, very cheaply - for 300 rubles, to Morozov. [Misha] asked for 500 but Morozov was haggling over the price and Misha gave up right away, although there’s another buyer on the horizon, but what can be done when Misha is so keen to get rid of his works? He is, however, now contemplating creating a new Swan Princess for another buyer and thus paying Morozov in kind for paying so little”[16]. The other buyer was Vladimir von Meck, who supported the artist for many years. The third Swan Princess order[17] was from Zabela’s relative, the art collector Yakov Zhukovsky, who had wanted to buy the first Swan Princess piece before M. Morozov got there ahead of him. On the Ge family farmstead in Pliski village, in the Chernigov governorate, where the Vrubels were spending the summer together with the accompanist Boris Yanovsky, the painter created the second Swan Princess piece for Baron von Meck. According to Yanovsky’s memoirs, in the evenings, Vrubel used to read aloud Pushkin’s tale, which helped Zabela to accustom herself to the Princess’s part. She would spend day after day rehearsing the role, just as she did when preparing for Marfa in “The Tsar’s Bride”, using a special method of hers. “She would spend much time pondering over every phrase, change her facial expressions dozens of times, stubbornly struggling to achieve a suitable tone and consistency throughout the performance. This is how her method worked: she would first familiarise herself with the opera, then she looked closely at her role, the character’s psychology, emotions, relation to other characters in the opera. Finally, she started the thorough, intellectually rigorous work of the task at hand - creating the character”[18] Reflexive immersion into the inner world of the character she was to enact distinguished Zabela from many opera performers of that time. Her approach was, in many respects, somewhat similar to the method employed in Russian drama in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, designed to reveal the complexities of an individual’s psychology, an entire range of a particular individual’s feelings and emotional states. This is what Rimsky-Korsakov had in mind when he wrote about the strengths of the singer’s “lyrical soprano” - he as referring to its potential for drama. Given to reflection and finely attuned to her character, Zabela performed differently each time, with great intensity. “When the audience was still applauding N[adezhda] I[vanovna] like mad, back home, she would feel like she was tied up in knots with frustration: ‘I know’, she exclaimed wringing her hands, ‘this Swan Princess is to be my swansong’.”[19] It was Vrubel, however, for whom the opera “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” became what might be called a swansong: it was his last project associated with Rimsky-Korsakov’s music. The opera premiered on October 21, 1900, and enjoyed singular success. The elements of the performance that won the most plaudits were the sets and costumes designed by Vrubel. His contemporaries’ memoirs describe the production as a lively musical canvas weaving together music, painting and the performing arts. Many elements of Vrubel’s design surprised the public as they differed somewhat from the tale’s text: for instance, “instead of the lonely oak tree, he covered the island with trees; instead of a cloudless day in the first act, he portrayed the evening and nocturnal lighting”[20]; “Mr Vrubel’s sea is somewhat gloomy and overly ominous looking all the time.”[21] It is no coincidence that this description also seems to fit the painting “The Swan Princess”, which features the Princess against what might be called a stage set re-creating the fairy tale’s magic world illuminated with a sunset light.

The painter’s special approach to nature makes him stand out among his peers and provides a key to understanding his creative method. In particular, when Vrubel elaborated a background for a painting, he would prepare carefully, choosing a specific scenery. He was keen on capturing the colour scheme of a certain time of the day and of a certain lighting. In practically all of his fantasy compositions - “Demon Seated” (1890, Tretyakov Gallery), “Princess Volkhova” (1897, Russian Museum), “Bogatyr” (1899, Russian Museum), “Pan” (1899, Tretyakov Gallery), “At Nightfall” (1900, Tretyakov Gallery) - the background is presented in contrast to the light of a setting sun or in the light of the moon (or a crescent moon). In some of his compositions, Vrubel, using stylised techniques, purposefully enhances dramatic lighting (“Demon Seated”), uses an unnaturally bright colour scheme or exaggerates the moon’s size (“Princess Volkhova”). In others, he very realistically depicts the last beams of the sun falling on the treetops and trunks of tall pines (“Bogatyr”, “The Swan Princess”) or conveys a dusk imperceptible to the eye (“At Nightfall”).

The image of the Swan Princess herself is a combination of natural and fantastical elements. The artist was excited by the challenge of depicting the spiritual world, the world invisible to the ordinary, materialistically attuned eye. To achieve realism in the depiction of a fantasy, however, Vrubel needed at least one element of the material world faithfully copied from its natural prototype. This duality of the artist’s idiom is fully reflected in the Swan Princess’s image. He alone proved capable of capturing the bird maiden at the moment of her metamorphosis, when reality becomes coupled with fantasy. Vrubel masterfully conveyed the natural texture of the gossamer fabric enveloping the Princess and the glitter of the shining precious stones gracing her headdress, but her face and figure are a composite image. Here is what Yekaterina Ge wrote about Vrubel’s method, inadvertently comparing it to that of her father-in-law, an artist from the “Peredvizhniki” (“Wanderers”) group: “Ge painted everything from nature, whereas Vrubel did not; Vrubel was fascinated by the world of fairy tales, he did not even want to make faces and gestures look too real; he seemed to be purposefully painting eyes too big, improbable gestures suggesting his figures didn’t have bones.”[22] Perhaps this is the reason why it’s impossible to see a resemblance between the Swan Princess and Zabela or, conversely, to discern in the Princess the features of any those who were, at one time or another, Vrubel’s sitters. Thus, Nikolai Prak- hov mentions, in his memoirs, “a considerable likeness”[23] between the image and his sister, Yelena Prakhova. During his years in Kyiv and while working on murals for the Kirillovskaya Church, Vrubel, as is well known, greatly treasured the friendship of historian Adrian Prakhov and his family. In view of this, it is impossible not to mention that the Princess’s unfathomably mysterious, expressive eyes were crafted by the artist with the same emotional intensity as the eyes on the sketch for the icon “Mother of God” (1884, present location?). Vrubel modelled the icon’s image on Adrian Prakhov’s wife, Emilia, who played a fateful role in the artist’s life.

Many of Vrubel’s images of Zabela had a touch of fantasy. Yekaterina Ge wrote: “Vrubel invented my sister’s beauty and realised it in portraits, although, in my opinion, he often exaggerated her flaws as he found them especially endearing.”[24] And Zabela herself used to stress that her natural gifts, such as her appearance and the gracefulness of her movements, made it easy for her to perform fantastic characters: “Both in my head and my movements, I have a special quality that allows me to embody supernatural creatures.”[25] She was endowed with an extraordinary gift in which was blended a talent for both singing and drama, as Mikhail Gnessin noted: “In her singing, the curves of the melody were always shimmering with new and delicate tonal and emotional shades <...> and all these curves and modulations were gracefully reflected in slight changes of her countenance and in barely perceptible movements of her lithe body. You believed her every word and every sound.”[26] As for the Swan Princess’s gesture and the turn of her figure in the painting, Vrubel most likely “caught” them when Zabela was delicately attuning herself to her heroine’s musical fabric. The Princess’s gesture when she holds her veil with her left hand can be easily matched with one of the photos featuring Zabela as the Swan Princess. A similar gesture and turn of the figure are also a feature of one of the figures in the sketch “Two Sea Princesses” (Russian Museum, 1898). From one point of view, the distinctive gesture of Zabela’s arm reminds of one of the positions in the Russian folk dance with the shawl, but from another point of view, it evokes a pose found in antique statues, beginning with the statues of the Roman goddess of modesty and chastity Pudicitia. Whereas the initial image on a balalaika reminded one only of the gesture from the Russian folk dance, the painting already features a more profound imagery highlighting the character’s symbolism. The Swan Princess is an unattainable ideal of purity and chastity. Her pensive look indicates a tinge of sadness in anticipation of the forthcoming abandonment of a free life. The singing elements of the wedding rituals of Russia’s northern and north-western regions, on which, in particular, Rimsky-Korsakov drew, included, in addition to merry introductions to songs, doleful rites called “laments”. The exaggeratedly sad face of the Swan Princess on the balalaika, as well as her pensive look in the painting, appear to be related to this traditional perception of the bride. It is not for no reason that the Swan Princess’s final arioso, called “Unlock this secret, Tsar...”, is injected with a distinctive symbolism, containing these lines: “For the living to work wonders, I came down from Heaven. I live invisible In the hearts of those who are dear to me. I bring light and joy to many on earth, sorrow becomes sweet in a song; in a tale, fear becomes endearing. The sun shines brighter for them, spring has more glowing colors of red, they understand the whisper of the waves, (they understand) the birds in the wood.”

These lines, resembling an incantation and written by the opera’s librettist Vladimir Belsky, enhance the fantastical feel of the Swan Princess. The Princess becomes the main personification of the idea of a perfect aesthetic beauty transforming everything around it. Zabela’s talent for opera helped highlight the character’s profound meaning: “Her Swan Princess, also captured by Vrubel on canvas, is a fairy tale realised in sounds, an authentic poetic vision created by folk imagination. Animate these crystal-clear sounds with sunny emotions and a vernal maidenly tenderness and maybe you’ll hear and see the Swan Princess such as it was interpreted by Zabela and such as it would never be when performed by other singers at later times.”[27]

Vrubel’s composition was not just a portrayal of the bird maiden from a fairy tale, it also absorbed the charm of the female images previously created by him at the turn of the century and symbolises the unfathomable beauty, the deeply hidden “Soul of the World”[28] that he strove to convey in each of his pieces, be it a painting, a drawing or a sculpture. The image captured on the canvas would not have been so holistic had it not been for Zabela, who inspired the artist to create it.

1. From Mikhail Vrubel’s letter to Anna Vrubel (Abramtsevo, summer 1891) in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist [Vrubel. Perepiska. Vospominaniya o khudozhnike], Leningrad, 1976, p. 57 (hereinafter referred to as Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist).
2. From Mikhail Vrubel’s letter to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (May 8, 1898) in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 88.
3. L. Barsova, Nadezhda Zabela- Vrubel As Seen By Her Contemporaries [Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel' glazamisovremennikov], Leningrad, 1982, p. 30. (Hereinafter referred to as L. Barsova ,1982).
4. From Mikhail Vrubel’s letter to Anna Vrubel. (Abramtsevo, summer of 1891) in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 57.
5. Vrubel created illustrations to the verse “Prophet” and “Egyptian Nights” and designed the title page - “1799. A.S. Pushkin” - for A. Pushkin, Collected Works (3 volumes), A. Mamontov Printing Shop, 1899.
6. From Mikhail Vrubel’s letter to Anna Vrubel (Moscow, March, Monday (1899)) in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 63.
7. A catalogue of Tenisheva’s art collection mentions that Vrubel painted only five balalaikas (Ozer Dzhesko, Talashkino: Wooden Ware from Princess Tenisheva's Workshops [Talashkino. Derevyan- nye izdeliya masterskikh kn. M.Kl. Tenishevoy], 2 volumes, Vol. 1, Moscow, 2016, p. 35), four of which now form part of museum collections: “Bogatyr” (1899, Smolensk Open Air Museum), “Sea Princess” (1899, Tretyakov Gallery), “Swan Princess” (1899, Smolensk Open Air Museum), “Little Fishes” with a gifter’s inscription “As a Keepsake” (1899, Smolensk Open Air Museum).
8. Mikhail Vrubel’s letter to Anna Vrubel. (Moscow, March, Saturday (1899) in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 63.
9. A. Ivanov, Vrubel, St. Petersburg, 1916, p. 36.
10. L. Barsova, 1982, p. 52.
11. A reference to composers Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov.
12. L. Barsova, 1982, p. 52.
13. L. Barsova, Vrubel: No Comments, St. Petersburg, 2012, p. 136. (Hereinafter referred to as L. Barsova, 2012).
14. L. Barsova, 2012, p. 149.
15. L. Barsova, 1982, p. 60.
16. Ye. Ge, “Vrubel’s Last Years” [“Poslednie gody zhizni Vrubelya”] in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 274.
17. Ibid.
18. B. Yanovsky, “Memories of Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel” [“Vospominaniya o N.I. Zabele- Vrubel”] in Nikolai Rimsky-Kor- sakov: Research; Documents; Letters [N.A. Rimskiy-Korsakov. Issledovaniya. Materialy. Pis'ma], 2 volumes, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1954, p. 340. (Hereinafter referred to as B. Yanovsky, “Memories of Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel”).
19. L. Barsova, 1982, p. 65.
20. L. Barsova, 2012, p. 164.
21. L. Barsova, 2012, p. 173.
22. L. Barsova, 2012, p. 58.
23. N. Prakhov, “Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel” in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 205.
24. Ye. Ge, “Vrubel’s Last Years” in Mikhail Vrubel: Correspondence; Memories of the Artist, p. 265.
25. B. Yanovsky, “Memories of Nadezh- da Zabela-Vrubel”, p. 339 in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Research; Documents; Letters [N.A. Rims- kiy-Korsakov. Issledovaniya. Materialy. Pis'ma], 2 volumes, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1954, p. 339.
26. L. Barsova, 1982, p. 23.
27. S. Durylin: see L. Barsova, 1982, p. 62.
28. V. Ivanov, Matters Native and Universal [Rodnoe i vselenskoe], Moscow, 1994, p. 189.