Taras Bulba (opera)

Taras Bulba
Opera by Mykola Lysenko
Russian stamp depicting the title hero and its creator Nikolai Gogol (left)
Librettist	Mykhailo Starytsky
Language	Ukrainian
Based on	Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol
Premiere	1955 (1955) (present-day version) Kiev Opera House

Taras Bulba is an opera in four acts by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko. The libretto was written by Mykhailo Starytsky (the composer's cousin) after the novel Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol. The opera, which was unrevised at the time of the composer's death in 1912, was first performed in 1924. Present-day performances are however based on thorough revisions, affecting the text, the music and the orchestration, carried out in the 1930s and 1950s.

Lysenko worked on Taras Bulba during 1880-1891 but it was probably his insistence on the use of Ukrainian for performance that prevented any productions during his lifetime. Lysenko was reputedly a descendant of the 17th century Cossack leader Vovgura Lys, so the story may have had a special significance to him. Shortly after completing it he played the score to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who reportedly "listened to the whole opera with rapt attention, from time to time voicing approval and admiration. He particularly liked the passages in which national, Ukrainian, touches were most vivid... Tchaikovsky embraced Lysenko and congratulated him on his talented composition."

The history of the present form of the opera is complex. A piano score was published in 1913, but much of the composer's original orchestration was lost. The prelude to the fourth act was first given at a concert in Kiev under the baton of Reinhold Glière in 1914. The first performance of the full opera took place in 1924 in Kharkiv. Although this was unsuccessful, other better received productions were carried out in Kiev (1927) and Tbilisi, (1930), which generated the idea of a revision of the work. This was carried out in 1937 by Maksym Rylsky (text), Lysenko's pupil Levko Revutsky (music), and Borys Lyatoshynsky (orchestration), and performed in Moscow. This version in turn met with the criticism that it had departed too far from Lysenko's intentions. It was not until after World War II that the same trio produced the present-day performing version, which was premiered in Kiev in 1955. The opera remains in the repertory of the Kiev Opera House, which has also performed the opera abroad in Wiesbaden (1982), Dresden (1987) and Zagreb (1988). The opera house traditionally performs the opera at the end of each operatic season in Kiev.