Chuyut pravdu!... Ty vzoydyosh, moya zarya! (Susanin's aria) (A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin))

Glinka's first opera was staged at the Bolshoi Theatre in St Petersburg on 9 December 1836 and is usually counted the beginning of Russian opera. He called it Ivan Susanin; it was renamed A Life for the Tsar at Nicholas I's wish, and reverted to the original title in 1939 with a Soviet libretto that removed the monarchy from the plot. The story is of a peasant who leads a Polish detachment into the forest to die with him. Glinka gave the Russian characters song-derived melody and the Poles mazurka and polonaise, letting dance rhythms carry the conflict.