Mozart i Salieri

Opera by NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, 1898, to a LIBRETTO after Aleksandr Pushkin's poem, first produced in Moscow. Pushkin's text is based on the legend that spread shortly after WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART'S death, accusing the eminently respectable Italian composer Antonio Salieri (for a time a teacher of LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN) of poisoning Mozart. In Pushkin's poem and in the opera, Salieri declares that were Mozart allowed to live on, other composers—honest, industrious, but not blessed by genius—would be condemned to futility.

Rimsky-Korsakov used authentic excerpts from Mozart's compositions as well as musical allusions to Salieri's opera Tarare, which Mozart prized highly in this work.