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Tchaikovsky |
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TH 214 UndinaУндинаProjected opera (1878).
HistoryIn 1869 Tchaikovsky wrote his opera Undina to a libretto by Vladimir Sollogub, which was not sanctioned for performance, and which the composer later destroyed. However, in 1878 he once again considered the story as the subject for an opera, with completely new music and libretto. On 30 April/12 May 1878, he wrote to Nadezhda von Meck: "I intend to spend the whole of July resting thoroughly, and in August to start work on something large-scale. I want to write an opera. Rummaging through my sister’s library, I came across Zhukovskii’s Undina, and re-read this tale, which I loved terribly in my youth. I should tell you that in 1869 I wrote an opera on this subject and submitted it to the theatre directorate. The directorate rejected it... Now once again I am taken by this subject and I have asked my brother Modest to compile a scenario for me" [1]. Yet within a month he had abandoned Undina in favour of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet."Undina has ceased to interest me", he wrote to Nadezhda von Meck on 23 May [2], and two days later he told Modest that in comparison with Romeo and Juliet, "Undina, Berthalda and Huldbrand appear to be supremely infantile and silly" [3]. In 1886 Tchaikovsky returned to Undina as a possible subject for a ballet. From: The Tchaikovsky Handbook, vol. 1 (2002), p.
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