Ivan the Fool
Music by César Cui
Ivan the Fool (Иванушка-дурачок in Cyrillic; Ivanuška-duračok in transliteration), composed in 1913 by César Cui, is an opera-fairytale made for children in one act and three tableaux. The libretto was written by Nadezhda Nikolaevna Dolomanova using Russian folk tales. (It is not derived from Leo Tolstoy's story of the same name.) The title can be rendered in English in a number of ways, depending upon whether one wishes to consider the diminutives involved: Foolish Ivan, Ivan the Little Fool, Johnny the Little Fool, etc. (The printed Russian score of 1913 adds a parallel title in French, Jeannot "le bêtà".) The performance history of this opera has yet to be traced.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Ivan the Fool (opera)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
César Antonovich Cui (Russian: Цезарь Антонович Кюи, romanized: Tsezar Antonovich Kyui; IPA: [ˈt͡sjezərʲ ɐnˈtonəvʲɪt͡ɕ kʲʊˈi] ; French: Cesarius Benjaminus Cui; 18 January [O.S. 6 January] 1835 – 26 March 1918) was a Russian composer and music critic, member of the Belyayev circle and The Five – a group of composers gathered by the idea of creating a specifically Russian type of music. As an officer of the Imperial Russian Army, he rose to the rank of Engineer-General (equivalent to full General), taught fortifications in Russian military academies and wrote a number of monographs on the subject.
Text from the Wikipedia article "César Cui", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by César Cui
- Angelo (1871)
- Le flibustier (1888)
- A Feast in Time of Plague (1900)
- Mademoiselle Fifi (1902)
- Mateo Falcone (1906)
- Little Red Riding Hood (1911)
- Puss in Boots (1913)