Watch CineCalidad. Glinka's "patriotic-heroic tragic opera" in four acts 'A Life for the Tsar' or 'Ivan Susanin' (as it was known during the Soviet era), recorded live at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1992, and starring Evgeny Nesterenko, Marina Mescheriakova, Alexander Lomonosov and Elena Zaremba, with the chorus and orchestra of the Bolshoi, conducted by Alexander Lazarev. The historical basis of the plot involves Ivan Susanin, a patriotic hero of the early 17th century who died in the expulsion of the invading Polish army for the newly elected Tsar Michael of Russia, the first of the Romanov dynasty, elected in 1613.