Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net

The Palm

Пальма

Sketches for a projected opera (?1867–68).

History

This projected work is only known from notes among Tchaikovsky’s sketches for the opera The Voevoda, which therefore presumably date from 1867 or 1868. In a letter to his brother Anatolii written in February 1868, the composer wrote of his desire to finish The Voevoda during the summer, because he already had another libretto in mind [1]. His next opera, Undina, was begun the following year, so it is probable that he was referring to a completely different subject.

The sketches consist of an outline scenario for the first act of an untitled opera, and a brief three-bar musical sketch, headed "The Palm" (Пальма). It is not certain that the scenario and the musical sketch relate to the same project, and no literary source for the text has so far been established.

From: The Tchaikovsky Handbook, vol. 1 (2002), p. 396–397
Copyright © 2002 Alexander Poznansky and Brett Langston

Notes:

1. Letter 113 to Anatolii Tchaikovsky, mid/late February 1868 [back]