Christmas Eve

(Russ. Noch' pered rozhdestvom). Opera in 4 acts by Rimsky‐Korsakov to his own lib. after story Christmas Eve in Gogol's Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1932). Comp. 1894–5. Prod. St Petersburg 1895, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, 1977, BBC (studio) 1987, London (ENO) 1988. Gogol story is also basis of Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki (rev. of Vakula the Smith), comp. 1885, and of an episode in Act II of Janáček's From the House of the Dead, comp. 1927–8.