Sorochinsky Fair: Introduction

Composer: MUSSORGSKY, Modest
  • Mussorgsky began working on Sorochintsï Fair in 1874. He originally envisioned it as a comic opera in the Ukrainian language, to be a vehicle for Ukrainian bass Osip Petrov and his wife, contralto Ann Vorob’yova.1
    • When Petrov died in 1878, Mussorgsky lost much of his motivation for the project.2
  • Like Khovanshchina, Mussorgsky worked on Sorochintsï Fair on an off for years. He never finished either opera, partly because he was plagued by ill health and alcoholism.3
    • Both works were reconstructed by other composers after Mussorgsky’s death. Shostakovich was one of the composers who edited a version of Sorochintsï Fair for performance.4
  • The libretto for Sorochintsï Fair  was adapted from a short story by Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist Nikolay Vasil’yevich Gogol. The story is a rambunctious peasant comedy.5
  • The Introduction is subtitled “A Warm Day in Little Russia.” It is one of the few fragments of Sorochintsï Fair which exist with Mussorgsky’s own orchestration (much of the opera he only sketched in vocal/piano score).6

Sources

  1. Cliff Eisen, and Stanley Sadie, “Mozart, (Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-6002278233. 
  2. Richard Taruskin, “Fair at Sorochintsï, The,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed December 4, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000002084. 
  3. Oldani, “Musorgsky [Mussorgsky; Moussorgsky], Modest Petrovich,” Grove Music Online.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Taruskin, “Fair at Sorochintsï, The,” Grove Music Online. 
  6. Ibid.

Cut IDs

10328