Yeletsky’s Aria from Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame

Lisa’s official suitor is the Prince Yeletsky, and he is brilliant cast here as the smug-faced and eminently slappable Valentin Kulik. Still, he (or rather his “voice,“ Evgeny Gavrilovich) gets to sing one the opera’s most beautiful love songs,«Я вас люблю» (Ya vas lyublyu), which actually means “I love you.“ This clip comes from a film of Pique Dame from 1960, one of three Soviet-era opera films directed by the great Roman Tikhomirov. Instead of taping the singers themselves, these fully realized “opera movies“ use film actors, carefully dubbed, which really heightens the dramatic intensity. In addition to Pique Dame, there are also films of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Borodin’s Prince Igor. Highly recommended for fans of great Russian operas. DISCLAIMER: I do not have the rights to any these videos, so please let me know if you need me to take them down!