By Hannah Meyers

“Oh those roads…/ Dust and fog/ cold, anxiety/ and dry steppe weeds,” crooned the seductive Siberian baritone, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, to the delight of the young Russian woman sitting next to me. She and her compatriots had packed Avery Fisher Hall to hear this legend sing. For the evening was not only a showcase of Hvorostovsky’s internationally lauded talents; it was an homage to the glories of 18th and 19th century Russian orchestral music.

The barrel-chested baritone was accompanied by the Philharmonia of Russian; Style of Five, a quintet devoted to Russian folk music; and the Cathedral Choral Society, all under the baton of Constantine Orbelian. So many performers filled the stage entirely, but there was still something intimate and family-like in the way the musicians interacted. Small, fond smiles passed between players after well-received numbers or an impressive solo. 

The round and rosy face of young Natalia Shkrebko as she rapidly strummed her dombra—the oval-shaped Mongolian instrument from which the balalaika developed—was charming. When she accompanied Hvorostovsky as he sang, “Like a cloud, a blue-grey cloud/fly to my dear homeland” in Tariverdiev’s “Somewhere Far Away,” she seemed as transported as the other Russian folks in the house. 

The evening’s program contained two distinct parts: the first featured selections from the early greats of Russian opera—Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and Rachmaninoff, to name a few. Pieces like Tchaikovsky’s “Snow Maiden,” with a bouncing piccolo part and chromatically moving violin notes, evoked the sparkling snow and speeding sleighs of the late 19th century Russian countryside.

The second half was explicitly devoted to the ringing Soviet songs of WWII (or the Great Patriotic War, as it was called in the USSR). The tight snare rolls, the trumpets calls and the mournful clarinet tones created an appropriate sensation of cold air and fear. Hvorostovsky loosened up his singing a bit in this second half, letting it become slightly breathy and intimate, closing songs like Novikov’s march-like “The Roads” with a sudden drop of the voice—as if the singer had suddenly heard a shot fired nearby.

A general atmosphere of familiarity and affection was most apparent in the three encores. All Russian classics, these had the entire house smiling, swaying and cheering. I noted the tympani player singing along sheepishly with the chorus as he smiled at the percussionist on tambourine. Requests and encouragements were shouted in Russian from all the tiers of balconies. And, as Hvorostovsky belted out “Moscow Nights,” I, too, felt the powerful nostalgia for Mother Russia.