The Nightingale (opera)

In 1917 Stravinsky created a separate concert work, a symphonic poem, from music from the opera. Published in 1921, this is correctly titled in French, unlike the opera: Chant du Rossignol [sic] (Song of the Nightingale).

Stravinsky began work on the opera in 1908 but put it aside after receiving the next year the commission from Sergei Diaghilev for the ballet The Firebird. He returned to it in 1913 after he had completed three ballets for Diaghilev, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring being the others. Act I, set at the seashore, was mostly complete by 1909; Acts II and III, set at court, were finished in early 1914. Stravinsky was no doubt aware of the advances in his style and technique during the intervening years.

After The Nightingale Stravinsky turned aside from large productions to concentrate on chamber music and piano music.

For the opera's premiere, the singers were in the pit while their roles were mimed and danced on stage; the mise-en-scène was by Alexandre Benois, who also designed the sets and costumes, and Alexandre Sanine; Boris Romanov was the choreographer.[1] The American premiere took place on 6 March 1926, but in French, at the Metropolitan Opera; this company would perform The Nightingale in its original language for the first time on 3 December 1981.

The Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico presented many operas by Stravinsky during the decade after its founding in 1956. These included, in 1957, The Rake's Progress. Performances of The Nightingale with Stravinsky himself conducting took place in 1962 as part of the composer's 80th birthday celebrations. Other stagings took place in 1963, 1969, 1970 and 1973.[2] In 2014 The Nightingale was paired with Mozart's The Impresario; its action took place in Paris in the 1920s.[3] Santa Fe's cast this time included Brenda Rae, Erin Morley, Meredith Arwady and Anthony Michaels-Moore.[4]

In its 2009 Toronto season the Canadian Opera Company famously staged the opera together with shorter works by Stravinsky as The Nightingale and Other Short Fables. This production by Robert Lepage toured to Japan (the New National Theatre Tokyo), France (the Aix-en-Provence Festival) and the United States (the Brooklyn Academy of Music),[5] greatly increasing the general public's awareness of a work more widely known in its symphonic poem incarnation.

Time: Ancient times

Place: China.

The Fisherman acts as commentator on the story's events.[7]

Notes

Sources

• Taruskin, Richard, (1998), "The Nightingale" in Stanley Sadie, (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol. Three, pp. 604–605. London: Macmillan Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-333-73432-7 ISBN 1-56159-228-5
• Walsh, Stephen, "The Nightingale", in Amanda Holden (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam. pp. 906–907. ISBN 0-14-029312-4