So, first off, my perspective on this is that of a listener who is not fluent in Russian. Aside from names, a few extremely common words, and loanwords, I cannot decipher the words in the songs by ear. Most of what I am reacting to when I listen is tone of voice, emotional content, and the other intangibles the singers bring to this. I am also listening with an ear towards translation. This cluster is the first I want to translate (possibly excluding Waltz).

Overture:
I'm not sure this stands on its own as well as it should. The music for the opera is strong, but it's stronger when it's backing the extremely strong vocals. It starts to lose me about at [Yuri's theme?], which I think isn't well-served by synth and makes me keep expecting the rest of Phantom of the Opera to turn up. Otherwise fine, though it ends a bit suddenly.

Night:
This is a excellent start. The clock chimes, the prince's vocals, especially Grishnov's vocals give it a very atmospheric feel. This is one of my top ten for the whole opera, and I'll do another post on translating it later.

Gallery:
Much more cheerful than the last one. It's easy to track the prince's emotional state throughout the song - his typically Russian fanboying of Ezar, his confident dismissal of Serg, and so on. Similarly a top ten.

Yuri the Mad:
Yuri's a little hard to hear to start but really blossoms. My mother, glancing over my shoulder, noted that his voice is very dramatic.The prince's scrambling confusion would be more convincing if he wasn't still rhyming - his bit seems a bit staged but is still entirely entertaining.

Illyan's Monologue:
Адеев is very convincing to me as Illyan. I admit to wondering why he seems to be narrating the opera from a windy moor somewhere.

It Is Regrettable to Know
This is another of my top tens. Ezar and Illyan play off each other beautifully, though I'm not fully convinced Illyan's role here is canonically appropriate. It really makes me want to hear the version of this with Ezar and Grishnov though.

Waltz:
So my problem with this is that I don't understand why this is where it is in the opera from a plot standpoint. In the other libretto, it plays the obvious role of bringing us back in time to the past and introducing Ges. Here it plays neither role and is borrowed by entirely new characters. The Vortala plotline suffers enormously from bringing Kareen in early, because his proper introduction is cut and one begins to wonder why Serg is after Vortala when Illyan's the one singing duets with his wife. And why wedge more Illyan in here when he disappears in the second act except for abstract, not-really-there parts? I realize some may understandably prefer more Illyan to more Vortala, but it bothers me Given total liberty to rearrange stuff I would put this after Your Highness!, with the necessary tweaks.

Your Highness!
This is yet another of my top tens, for Ges the Prince's first friend who imho sounds like Ges ought to and Kareen particularly and the high enthusiasm of it all. This is my favorite Kareen part in the entire opera. From a plot standpoint, I think the lack of introduction for Vortala is a serious oversight and it would make way more sense to have Serg and Kareen come in together* as before, but that doesn't impact my appreciation of the music. When listening to the pure audio without reference to the lyrics, I've mistaken Vortala for the first friend once or twice as he comes in (later obviously not). Grishnov is also not quite as distinctive as usual.

("Ты обхохочешься! Дочка Гришнова в меня влюблена!" - and what's going on here? I want to know the story behind this.)

*making Ваше Высочество "Welcome, Your Highnesses", better scansion than I think I could get otherwise.