Римский Корсаков. Майская ночь. Majskaja noč ( May Night), Lemešev, Nebolsin, 1948

Recording from 1948. The cast is listed at the beginning of the video. The libretto of May Night, Rimsky s second opera, derives from a fairy tale by Gogol. It tells the story of the love of Levko and Hanna who plan to marry despite opposition from his father, The Governor. Levko tells Hanna the legend of the girl who drowned herself to escape her stepmother and became a rusalka (east European version of a mermaid ). However, the stepmother also drowned and now cannot be distinguished from the good rus