About the work
Opera in four acts with a prologue by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to a libretto by Vladimir Belsky after Alexander Pushkin's 1831 verse tale. Composed in 1899–1900 for the centenary of Pushkin's birth, it was first performed on 3 November 1900 at the Solodovnikov Theatre in Moscow by Savva Mamontov's Private Russian Opera.
Plot
Tsar Saltan marries the youngest of three sisters; her envious siblings gain influence at court and have the young tsaritsa and her newborn son Gvidon sealed in a barrel and cast into the sea. Washed up on a distant island, Gvidon grows into the ruler of a magical realm created for him by an enchanted Swan-Princess. Disguised as a bumblebee, he secretly visits his unsuspecting father before the family is finally reunited.
Cultural significance
The purely orchestral interlude known as the 'Flight of the Bumblebee' became one of the most frequently performed concert pieces drawn from any Rimsky-Korsakov score, even as the opera itself remains comparatively rarely staged outside Russia. Alongside The Snow Maiden, it is considered a high point of his colourfully orchestrated fairy-tale operas.