Gurilyov’s romance and Baratynsky’s elegy “Razuverenie” as sung by Larisa
Remember when Kharita Ignatyevna was teaching Larisa how to handle wealthy suitors, and she took up her guitar, sat down by the window and sang "Matushka, golubushka, solnyshko moe, Pozhalei, rodimaya, dityatko tvoe!"
What, in essence, does this romance by Gurilyov, to words by Nikormsky, signify? On the one hand, Larisa is already in love and agitated by it; on the other, she is quite literally begging her mother not to tempt her.
In general, this has already been sung in the play, and more than once, only in the words of Baratynsky's romance set to music by Glinka: "Do not tempt me without need...". In fact, temptation without need is a direct analogue of her relations with Paratov, and indeed with the whole of society and the cynical mores of the philistine world, so alien to her. Larisa repeatedly sings precisely this line, "do not tempt me without need...", yet she is tempted again and again. And, as the culmination, she sings the romance in full in reply to Paratov's request.
A special mark of Larisa's character is, without doubt, that she sings no vulgar trifle, no urban romance, but, though she is connected with the Gypsy chorus, performs the most classical of pieces: Baratynsky's elegy, titled "Razuverenie" ("Disenchantment") in the original, to the music of the great Glinka.
A pity that this refinement is squandered on the wrong people and valued so very low: "A pretty young lady, plays various instruments, sings."
