Tchaikovsky
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TH 244

The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton

Печальная судьба преподобного Амоса Бартона

Projected opera (1893).

• An unrealised project dating from late 1893.

• Libretto based on the short story of the same name by George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] in the collection Scenes of Clerical Life (1858).

History

In his biography of the composer, Modest Tchaikovsky recalled that "In his last year, Petr Il´ich’s favourite writer was George Eliot. He became acquainted with her works on one of his tours abroad and he began with this amazing woman’s masterpiece The Mill on the Floss. Only L. Tolstoi could rival her in Petr Il´ich’s esteem. Adam Bede, Silas Marner and Middlemarch all filled him with delight, and he read them not only once, but re-read them... Romola pleased him least of all, but after Mill on the Floss he liked the Scenes of Clerical Life the most" [1].

According to Modest, the composer intended to compose an opera on the subject of The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton, but later changed his mind in favour of Mister Gilfil’s Love-Story. There are no references to Amos Barton in other sources.

From: The Tchaikovsky Handbook, vol. 1 (2002), p. 420-421
Copyright © 2002 Alexander Poznansky and Brett Langston

Notes:

1. M. I. Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 3 (1902), p. 633  [back].