The Stone Guest (Dargomyzhsky)
The Stone Guest (Каменный гость in Cyrillic, Kamennyj gost' in transliteration) is an opera in three acts by Alexander Dargomyzhsky. The libretto was taken almost verbatim from Alexander Pushkin's like-named play in blank verse (part of his collection Little Tragedies), with slight changes in wording and the interpolation of two songs indicated in the play. It was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 16 February 1872 (Old Style).
According to the composer's wishes, the last few lines of Tableau 1 were composed by César Cui, and the whole was orchestrated by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Many years later, Rimsky-Korsakov revised his own orchestration of the opera, rewrote a few of Dargomyzhsky's own original passages, and added an orchestral prelude. This version, completed in 1903 and first performed in 1907 at the Bolshoi Theatre, is now considered the standard version.
Read more about The Stone Guest (Dargomyzhsky): Style, Roles, Recordings
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