Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) composed his comic opera May Night in 1878-9, at a time when he was fascinated by stories of the supernatural and the fantastic. It was also at this time that he had been appointed to a teaching role at the St Petersburg Conservatory – a role he thought himself ill prepared for. Much to the astonishment of his fellow composers and friends – Borodin, Balakirev and Mussorgsky - he threw himself into the study of counterpoint, writing canons and fugues – all far removed from the spirit of Russian Nationalism in music that he and his friends had championed.

To show that he hadn’t deviated from the path of music inspired by Russian folklore and culture, May Night, his second opera, is perhaps his most ‘Russian’. It is based on a story by Nikolai Gogol called May Night (or the Drowned Maiden), which Rimsky uses virtually unaltered, writing his own recitatives and some of the texts to arias. This adoption of ordinary speech or dialogue from the written story gave the work a colloquial, folk-like feel. Many of the tunes in the opera are from a collection published in 1872 by Alexander Rubets of Ukrainian folk songs.

Rimsky’s orchestration is superb – glittering and highly illustrative of the supernatural realm of the ‘rusalki’ and in places foreshadows the music Wagner wrote in act 2 of Parsifal for the depiction of Klingsor’s Garden. The opera was premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1880.

Cast:
- Levko: Vitaly Taraschenko
- Hanna: Natalia Erasova
- Pannochka: Marina Lapina
- The Mayor: Vyacheslav Pochapsky
- The Distiller: Alexander Arkhipov
- The Mayor’s Sister-in-Law: Elena Okolycheva
- The Clerk: Piotr Gluboky
- Kalenik, The Village Drunkard: Nikolai Reshetniak