About the work
'The Miserly Knight' is a one-act opera, Op. 24, by Sergei Rachmaninoff, setting Alexander Pushkin's 'little tragedy' of the same name almost word for word. Rachmaninoff composed the work between 1903 and 1905 and conducted the premiere himself on 24 January 1906 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, on a double bill with his opera 'Francesca da Rimini'.
Plot
An old Baron lives alone with the gold he hoards in a cellar vault, taking pleasure only in gazing at his wealth. His heavily indebted son Albert pleads in vain for support and turns to the Duke. When the Baron accuses his son before the Duke of plotting to kill him, he collapses and dies without revealing where his fortune is hidden.
Cultural significance
Rachmaninoff originally hoped to cast Feodor Chaliapin in the title role, but Chaliapin withdrew over artistic differences; the chamber-scaled, all-male cast has kept the work a rarely staged curiosity within his output to this day.