Composition History
The Italian play Giuditta by Paolo Giacometti, produced in Saint Petersburg in 1860, first inspired the Serov to work on the project as a vehicle for the Italian opera troupe in Saint Petersburg. Using Serov's scenario, Ivan Antonovich Giustiniani wrote a libretto in Italian. When an Italian production of the proposed opera proved legally impossible, the Italian libretto was translated into Russian by Konstantin Zvantsov and Dmitry Lobanov, and some verses were added by the poet Apollon Maykov; in the meantime, the composer was writing the music without having the words ahead of time.
Read more about this topic: Judith (Serov)
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