The Golden Cockerel by Rimsky-Korsakov, Sun 23 May 2021, From (2021/2021), Directed by Barrie Kosky, Conductor Daniele Rustioni, Opéra Nouvel de Lyon, Lyon, France

Last opera by Rimski-Korsakov, The Golden Cockis a satirical compendium of his work and a century of Russian opera. The composer also emphasizes the grotesque contours of Pushkin's tale, multiplying comic situations and winks at Russian culture. By depicting Dodon as a Don Quixote stricken with oblomovism, Rimsky-Korsakov mocks the tsarist power. And by developing – much more than Pushkin – the theme of the Orient, he not only sublimates through the music the power of seduction of the mysterious oriental princess: he gives the piece some echoes of the Russo-Japanese war and beginnings of the Revolution. Unsurprisingly, the incumbent tsar Nicholas II largely censured the composer's work. Rimsky-Korsakov thus never saw this ultimate masterpiece played, the symbolism and comic verve of which