About the work
Comic opera by Modest Mussorgsky based on Nikolai Gogol's short story The Fair at Sorochyntsi from the collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. Mussorgsky worked on it from 1874 until his death in 1881 without finishing it; an initial, piano-accompanied and abridged staged version was given at the Comedy Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 30 December 1911, with fully orchestrated completions by other composers following only later.
Plot
At a Ukrainian village fair, the young Gritsko wants to marry the beautiful Parasya, but her stepmother Khivrya opposes the match. A superstition about a devil's red jacket causes confusion among the fairgoers before a ruse finally allows Gritsko and Parasya to marry.
Cultural significance
Mussorgsky intended the piece as a light-hearted counterpart to his serious historical dramas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina and drew on Ukrainian folk music for it. Because he left the opera unfinished, several later completions exist, of which the version by Vissarion Shebalin and Pavel Lamm is most frequently performed today.