I'm presuming you're referring to "Zashem zhe eti slyozy" ("Soon it will be midnight"), and not to Lisa's scene and arioso (Och polnoch blizitsya...Ach, istomilas ja gorem). If so....
The wonderful Russian soprano Maria Gavrilova sings it on a CD called BOLSHOI-GALA on the BMG/Melodiya label. I saw/heard Gavrilova as Tatiana in EUGENE ONEGIN, and fell in love with her voice and dramatic abilities. I expect she does a wonderful rendition of this seldom-recorded aria.
I vaguely remember it also being on the Galina Gorchakova solo CD of Tchaikovsky and Verdi arias (on Philips),
Another good choice would be Raina Kabaivanska's version, on her eponymous CD on Eklipse Records.
Also worth considering is the rendering by underrated British soprano Kyra Vane, who is coming back into vogue, on the Preiser "Lebendige Vergangenheit" CD devoted to her.
It also appears on the CD SOPRANOS IN THE GRAND TRADITION, sung by the great Sena Jurinac (presumably in Russian, but I cannot guarantee this; on the EMI Classics label). Or, if you'd rather have an album of Jurinac alone, there is a CD of her singing R. Strauss' Four Last Songs (for which she was well-known), and arias by Mozart and others, which also includes the Pique Dame aria - it's the SENA JURINAC cd on EMI's "References" series.
It's also sung by Stefka Evstatieva on a CD called RUSSIAN MUSIC AND REVOLUTION on Sony Classics, which features operatic and non-operatic music.
Inessa Galante sings the aria on her HEROINES CD, on Campion Records. Galante, if you're not familiar with her, has a glorious lyric soprano voice which has proved occasionally problematical in the opera house, but which is flaweless and sheer pleasure to listen to on her studio recordings. If, however, you do prefer live recordings, Galante also sings the aria on the recording of her Russian Recital at Wigmore Hall (also on Campion Records).
For a more arcane recording, it's sung by turn-of-the-20th-century Italian soprano Medea Mei-Figner (who?) on a CD called ITALIAN SOPRANOS OF THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY, on the Minerva label). This album also features much better known sopranos like Luisa Tetrazzini, Adelina Patti, and Emma Albani. I suspect, however, that the aria is sung in Italian on this CD, as that would be the language the opera was performed in in Italy back then (and even in some Italian houses today). The same recording is remastered on the SYMPOSIUM OPERA COLLECTION, VOL. 1&2 CD (Symposium label), which is devoted to Medea Mei-Figner and her husband Nikolay Figner, a Russian tenor - so who knows, maybe Mei-Figner does the aria in Russian after all.
You can hear the aria in German by the fantastic dramatic soprano Emmy Destinn, again from early in the last century, on the Pearl/Koch CD devoted to her. There is another German-language version, sung by the noted soprano Ljuba Welitsch, on the CD GREAT VOICES OF THE 50s (on London Classics), and yet another rendering in German, by soprano Maria Cebotari, appears on the Preiser "LV" CD devoted to her.
As for complete recordings of the opera, I would first strongly urge you to get the Unitel video of the glorious 1983 Bolshoi production, starring the magnificent Vladimir Atlantov as Ghermann. This is a stunning, beatifully sung and acted production, with Atlantov giving what may have been *the* performance of his not-too-shabby career.
You could do worse, on CD, than the Kirov recording conducted by Gergiev. This is not my favourite by a long chalk, but that is because I was fortunate enough to find second-hand the out-of-print Melodiya/Philips recording of the Bolshoi conducted by Mark Ermler and featuring Atlantov as Hermann and Milashkina as Lisa.
Karen Mercedes ............................ NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + I sing hymns with my spirit, + + but I also sing hymns with my mind. + + - 1 Corinthians 14:15 + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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