Leader, J. Mouland Begbie
Conductor, Guy Warrack
Gogol's collection of short stories,
' Evenings on a farm near Dikanka ', has been a fruitful source of inspiration to Russian opera composers. Mussorgsky's Fair at Sorochintsy, Tchaikovsky's Vakula the Smith, Rimsky-Korsakov's A May Night and Christmas Eve-all these works are based on Gogol's delightful, humorous-fantastic tales of village life in the Ukraine.
' A May Night ' . had been a favourite tale of Rimsky-Korsakov's from childhood ; he read it with his lady-love on the day he proposed to her ; and it was his wife who finally persuaded him to make an opera of it. The opera (written in 1878) was Korsakov's second and, as listeners will gather from the overture, is one of his most tuneful and lyrical compositions, by no means depending on orchestral colour for its effect.