About the work
Verse drama in four acts by Mikhail Lermontov, written around 1835. Censors repeatedly refused to clear the socially critical play, so only a heavily cut version reached print in 1842; a first performance, still permitted only in extracts, was given in 1852 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. The play was not fully cleared for the stage until 1862.
Plot
The jealous nobleman Yevgeny Arbenin wrongly suspects his wife Nina of infidelity with Prince Zvezdich during a masked ball in wintry St Petersburg. Driven by wounded honour, he poisons Nina with his own hands without ever learning of her innocence, realising his crime only once it is too late.
Cultural significance
Masquerade became internationally known chiefly through Vsevolod Meyerhold's lavish production, which premiered at the Alexandrinsky Theatre on 25 February 1917 — the very day the February Revolution broke out in Petrograd. Regarded as the last theatre premiere of tsarist Russia and six years in the making, the production stayed in the theatre's repertoire until 1940.