Orpheus and Eurydice

Since its first appearance in 1975, Zhurbin's rock opera Orpheus and Eurydice has been the focus of enormous interest and attention. The reaction from the Soviet Communist Press and the official propaganda "apparatchiks" was negative and even scandalous. Somehow the work managed to survive all this - mostly because general audiences disregarded the "directives" from the Central Committee. There is an old Russian proverb which goes "people vote with their feet," which means the audience either comes to the performance or it doesn't. In the case of Orpheus the response was incredible. In some cities it was performed twice in one day, two weeks in a row at the sports arena with six to seven thousand tickets sold at every performance. One group gave it 2500 performances all over the Soviet Union and Europe. This two CD set is a remastering of the original cast album made in 1977 by the St. Petersburg Theater Rock Opera Group. About the Two Portraits, the composer writes: "My love for the great poetry of the two Russian poets from the first half of the 20th century - Marina Tsvetayeva and Velemir Khlebnikov - inspired me to write this music in an attempt to create some kind of "Musical Portraits." This set should have broad appeal to a wide group of listeners. It is really a "crossover" album.