The Golden Cockerel

The Golden Cockerel (??????? ??????? in Russian, Zolotoy Petuschok in transliteration) is an opera in three acts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to a Russian libretto by Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky, based on the 1834 poem by Pushkin. First performance: Nezlobin Theatre in Moscow on September 24, 1909.

Factors in the writing of the opera

Four factors influenced Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to write this opera-ballet.

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• (1) PUSHKIN

R-K?s other works inpired by Alexander Pushkin?s poems, especially Tsar Saltan, had been very successful. The Golden Cockerel had the same magic!

Related Topics:
Alexander Pushkin - ''Tsar Saltan''

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• (2) BILIBIN

Ivan Bilibin had already produced artwork for the Golden Cockerel, and this conjured up the same traditional Russian folk flavours as those in Tsar Saltan.

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• (3) Czar Nicholas II:

The Czar had foolishly started the Russo-Japanese War by making a pre-emptive strike against the Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea. This war was highly unpopular amongst the Russian people - it proved to be a military disaster, and Russia was eventually defeated. (Remember that in the Golden Cockerel, King Dodon foolishly decides to make a pre-emptive strike against the neighbouring State, and there is huge chaos and bloodshed on the battlefield. The king himself gives more attention to his personal pleasures, and comes to a sticky end!)

Related Topics:
Russo-Japanese War - Manchuria - Korea

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• (4) RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITY IN 1905

The Russian people were not only upset by the Russo-Japanese War, but more importantly by their feudal living conditions. On January 9th, 1905, several thousand people, led by a priest, demonstrated peacefully in the Palace square in St Petersburg. They tried to hand in a petition asking for better working conditions, an 8- hour day, a minimum wage, and the prohibition of child labour. However, more than 1000 were shot by the Tsarist troops, and the date has become known as Bloody Sunday. News of this spread rapidly - there was an uprising in Odessa, where the sailors in the battleship Potemkin took over the ship and fired on the headquarters of the tsarist troops. Again, there was a massacre of people on the Odessa steps. The Students in the St Petersburg Conservatoire also demonstrated against the Czar, and Rimsky Korsakov supported their protest. For this he was dismissed from his post as head of the Conservatoire. Glazunov and Lyadov resigned and left with him.

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So Rimsky-Korsakov decided to create a work exposing the disastrous tsarist regime, and in 1906 he started work on his Golden Cockerel opera. It was finished in 1907. The opera was immediately banned by the Palace, and was not allowed to be staged ? the resemblance between the Czar and the foolish King Dodon was too close! Rimsky-Korsakov?s health was undoubtedly affected by this, and he was dead by the time it was performed two years later.

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