Fedor Chaliapin created the role of Salieri in Rimsky-Korsakov’s one act opera “Mozart and Salieri” in 1898. The consummate man of the theater, Chaliapin was known for his intense portrayals. When he developed Boris at the same time, his hallucination scene was so vivid that audience members used to rise from their seats to attempt to get a better look at what was in the corner of the stage that so fascinated and horrified the czar. At the same time, he was not above shattering the fourth wall, often stepping out to stage center to reprise a favorite aria, such as King Philip’s soliloquy from Verdi’s Don Carlo, even though he interrupted the line of the plot to do so.

The great man’s fascination with both theatrical realism and surrealism would have made him intrigued by Sunday afternoon’s production of “Mozart and Salieri” by the Moscow Virtuosi at Alice Tully Hall. This was a fully staged version, with the caveat that full staging consisted of a table, two upholstered chairs, and a piano. The orchestra, a medium-sized chamber ensemble, was right there on the stage with the two actors. Although the original text was by Pushkin, the coups de theatre reminded me more of Cervantes or Pirandello.

To mention a few of the powerfully disorienting devices that made this performance so involving: The concertmaster of the orchestra leaves his seat and portrays the blind musician that plays for Mozart; the orchestra sits motionless as Wolfgang imagines the music of his requiem, brought to life by an off-stage recording; and when Mozart performs at his prop piano, the real pianist is playing right behind him.

All this inspired direction is suggested by the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, which includes snippets from both Mozart and Salieri. The totality of the experience is similar to that scene in “Don Giovanni” wherein the onstage players perform tunes easily recognizable as written by Mozart. In this fin-desiecle version, we hear bits of “Figaro” and Salieri’s “Tarare.” Conductor Vladimir Spivakov did a fine job of transforming his modern band into a model of 18th-century decorum.

Dmitry Korchak was a lively and vocally nimble Mozart. Not Chaliapin, perhaps, but masterful. Baritone Sergei Leiferkus as Salieri took us on a journey of degeneration notable not only for its dignity but also for its crushing sense of incipient madness. Beginning as the narrator, Salieri steps into the action just long enough to become the butt of the younger composer’s jokes, to recognize his genius, and to poison him (it is obvious here that Peter Shaffer read his Pushkin).

Finally re-emerging from the cocoon of the drama, Leiferkus-Salieri self-immolates before our eyes and ears. The rich and steady baritone voice becomes shaky and wavering in pitch, like the intonations of the blind violinist. A contemporary review (from 1901) described Chaliapin’s finale as a man “who wanted to sneer, but his guilty conscience showed him the damning truth and choked him with tears.” Mr. Leiferkus delivered exactly such a moving and conflicted characterization.

The disappointingly small crowd – and if you had subtracted those hundreds of Russian speakers heard at intermission, the house would have been virtually empty – certainly received its money’s worth for this event, as the opera was preceded by a solid hour of energetic music making from the chamber orchestra.

It was Gustav Mahler who suggested to Arnold Schonberg that he flesh out his “Verklarte Nacht” from string sextet to full string orchestra so that the Vienna Philharmonic strings could have a run at it. The resultant arrangement does jettison some clarity of the individual line, but it compensates with a more zaftig feeling of passionate expression.

This Moscow version was strangely in the middle, the small orchestra having three cellos instead of Schonberg’s original two and sounding a bit anemic for the full rendition while still sacrificing some of the sextet’s original intimacy. The playing was taut, however, and this made for a sinewy, if not a steamy, interpretation.

Less successful was the Bartok Divertimento for Strings. Again, the size of the ensemble left a bit of pallor on the face of this polyrhythmic composition, although the individual musicians should be praised for their accuracy. Somehow the feel was simply wrong throughout. There was no insouciance or optimism to the opening, no jazzy idiom. The propulsive folk element, so vital in Bartok, was subdued, even flaccid. A strange dichotomy: Tight instrumental line producing rather flabby ensemble substance.

But the story this afternoon was the rare piece of fascinating theater. Russian opera from the mid-19th century through the mid-20th is shamefully absent from opera houses in the West. But when Valery Gergiev brings his Kirov to town, there is a line out the door for seats. With the Metropolitan in need of revitalization and complaining about declining audience sizes, perhaps an evening of Rimsky, Rubinstein, or Dargomyzhsky would be just the ticket.