The Golden Cockerel - Composition History

Composition History

Rimsky-Korsakov had considered his previous opera, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1907) to be his final artistic statement in the medium, and, indeed, this work has been called a "summation of the nationalistic operatic tradition of Glinka and The Five." However the political situation in Russia at the time inspired him to take up the pen to compose a "razor-sharp satire of the autocracy, of Russian imperialism, and of the Russo-Japanese war."

Four factors influenced Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to write this opera-ballet:

1. Pushkin – Rimsky-Korsakov’s other works inspired by Alexander Pushkin's poems, especially Tsar Saltan, had been very successful. The Golden Cockerel had the same magic.
2. Bilibin – Ivan Bilibin had already produced artwork for the Golden Cockerel, and this conjured up the same traditional Russian folk flavours as those in Tsar Saltan.
3. Russo-Japanese War – Under Tsar Nicholas II Russia became involved in a war with Japan. This war was highly unpopular amongst the Russian people. It proved to be a military disaster, and Russia was eventually defeated. (In the Golden Cockerel, King Dodon foolishly decides to make a pre-emptive strike against the neighbouring State, and there is huge chaos and bloodshed on the battlefield. The king himself gives more attention to his personal pleasures, and comes to a sticky end.)
4. Russian Revolutionary Activity in 1905 – Many Russian people were not only upset by the Russo-Japanese War, but also by poor living conditions. On January 9, 1905, several thousand people, led by a priest, demonstrated peacefully in the Palace Square in St Petersburg. They tried to hand in a petition asking for better working conditions, an eight hour day, a minimum wage, and the prohibition of child labour. However, more than 1,000 persons were shot by the Tsarist troops, and the date has become known as Bloody Sunday (1905). News of this massacre spread rapidly – there was an uprising in Odessa, where the sailors in the battleship Potemkin took over the ship and fired on the headquarters of the tsarist troops. Again, there was a massacre of people on the Odessa steps. The Students in the St Petersburg Conservatoire also demonstrated against the Czar, and Rimsky Korsakov supported their protest. For this he was dismissed from his post as head of the Conservatoire. Alexander Glazunov and Anatoly Lyadov resigned and left with him. See also Russian Revolution of 1905.

Rimsky-Korsakov decided to create a work exposing the disastrous tsarist regime, and in 1906 he started work on his Golden Cockerel opera. It was finished in 1907. The opera was immediately banned by the Palace, and was not allowed to be staged – the resemblance between the Czar and the foolish King Dodon was too close. Rimsky-Korsakov’s health was probably affected by this, and he was dead by the time it was performed two years later.