A Life for the Tsar
However the most important events in the history of Russian opera were two great operas by Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857) A Life for the Tsar, ("Zhizn za tzarya", originally entitled "Ivan Susanin" 1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (based on the tale by Alexander Pushkin, 1842. These two works inaugurated a new era in Russian music and upraise of Russian national opera.