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Tchaikovsky |
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TH 201 HyperbolaГиперболаProjected lyrical opera in one act (1854).
HistoryThis project is known only from two letters from Tchaikovsky to his distant relative Viktor Ol´khovskii. In the first, dating from July 1854, the composer enquires when Ol´khovskii will be coming to Saint Petersburg with the libretto: "Bring everything you have with you, my dear fellow, and as much as you care to write" [1]. The second letter is undated, although it appears to have been written within a couple of months after the first. ‘Today I had the pleasure of receiving the text of the opera Hyperbola’, Tchaikovsky wrote. "I’m thoroughly delighted with it. Just one thing -- there are too many arias and recitatives, but very few duets, trios, etc. But anyway, I send you my heartfelt thanks" [2]. The original letters have disappeared, but... one of the letters included a musical sketch by Tchaikovsky, accompanying the words «Борода ль моя бородушка» (the setting for which cannot be established from the libretto) [3]. It is not known whether any other music was composed, and there are no references to this project in other documents. Ol´khovskii’s MS libretto shows that the ‘lyrical opera in one act’ is set in the fictional town of Dopotopin [which translates roughly as ‘Antedeluvia’], with a cast of six characters: Erullii (a citizen of Dopotopin), Hyperbola (his daughter), His Highness Volovii (husband of Hyperbola), Prince Gostal (son of Volovii), Sapphire (a young peasant), Teorima (friend of Hyperbola), Kazulin (associate of Prince Gostal). The humorous nature of the opera is evident from the first stage direction: "The theatre represents the location". From: The Tchaikovsky Handbook, vol. 1 (2002),
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