Rimsky-Korsakov: The Golden Cockerel (complete opera recorded in 2021) Blu-ray

In the autumn of 1906, at a time when he was saying he didn't want to write anything further, Rimsky-Korsakov had the idea of starting an opera based on The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, the last of Pushkin's folk tales in verse, written in 1834. Having been greatly affected personally by the revolutionary turmoil the year before, the composer saw in this story about a tsar punished for his cowardice, blind despotism and disloyalty, an opportunity to retaliate against the autocracy.

He entrusted Vladimir Belsky, who had written the libretti for two of his previous operas, with the job of adapting Pushkin's original tale while preserving its style and form - and above all with fleshing it out along the satirical lines the composer had settled on.

The first sketch is dated 15 October 1906. It is a version of the Cockerel's cry - a real call for anew creative impulse. As soon as he was asked,Belsky delivered instalments of the libretto with a regularity that allowed Rimsky-Korsakov to make rapid progress with the work. Less than a year later, on 29 August 1907, while on holiday at his country home in Lyubensk, the composer completed the full score.