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The Storm

(Гроза)

Projected opera (?1864–67).

History

In 1864 Tchaikovsky wrote an overture to Aleksandr Ostrovsky’s drama The Storm. According to Modest Tchaikovsky, the composer had also planned an opera based "on the same subject of his favourite Russian drama" [1].

Modest also recalled that in 1866 Tchaikovsky met with Ostrovsky to discuss the idea, but that the project faltered because the composer Vladimir Kashperov had already written an opera on the story. Ostrovsky agreed instead to write a libretto based on his play Dream on the Volga, which became the basis for Tchaikovsky’s opera The Voyevoda [2].

No musical sketches for the opera have survived, and the project is not mentioned elsewhere.

From: The Tchaikovsky Handbook, vol. 1 (2002), p. 396
Copyright © 2002 Alexander Poznansky and Brett Langston

Notes:

1. Modest Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 1 (1900), pp. 191–192 [back]
2. Modest Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 1 (1900), pp. 257–258 [back]