In Russian historical drama of the nineteenth century, The Tsar's Bride (1849) by Mey and Vasilisa Melentieva (1868) by Ostrovsky and Gedeonov stand out for unusually complex and developed love themes. It has recently been noted that Mey's play was influenced not only by Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor, but particularly by Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor, which is based on the novel. I show that Gedeonov, the original author of Vasilisa Melentieva, was inspired not so much by Shakespeare's Henry VIII, but by Donizetti's Anna Bolena. As in Mey's case, this explains the special importance of female characters and romantic conflict in the play. The experiments of Mey and Gedeonov led Rimsky-Korsakov to compose an opera (1898) - based on and named after Mey's The Tsar's Bride - which was the most Italianate of Russian operas dedicated to the national past. In other words, the composer gave the love theme from ancient Russian history a musical beauty that elevated the theme to the highest level of artistic hedonism. But the main focus of the article is on Vasilisa Melentieva by Gedeonov and Ostrovsky. (c) 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
