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Scence from the opera The Maid of Pskov
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It is noteworthy that The Maid of Pskov – the first of the composer’s fifteen operas – was written during a period of close friendship with Modest Musorgsky who was then working on Boris Godunov.
“I imagine that Modest and I living together is the only example of two composers sharing the same quarters,” Rimsky-Korsakov later wrote. “How could we not influence one another? Quite simply. In the morning, until noon, it was normally Musorgsky who used the piano, while I was either writing out or orchestrating something that I had already fully planned. At noon he left for his work at the ministry and I would take over at the piano. In the evenings we would agree by mutual consent (who got the piano)... That autumn and winter we worked a great deal, constantly sharing our thoughts and intentions. Musorgsky composed and orchestrated the Polish act of Boris Godunov and the folk scene ‘Near Kromy’. I was orchestrating and completing The Maid of Pskov.” The opera was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre on 1 January 1873, one hundred and forty years ago.
Interestingly, in the opera The Tsar’s Bride, also by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the role of Prince Vyazemsky is performed by a baritone and that of Yelisey Bomelius by a tenor.
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