Rothschild's Violin

Rothschild's Violin (Russian: Скрипка Ротшильда) is a one-act opera by Russian composer Veniamin Fleishman (1913-1941) set to the Russian libretto by the composer after the short story Rothschild's Fiddle by Anton Chekhov. The opera centres on the bitter central character, Yakov Ivanov, a coffin-maker and amateur fiddler, his gradual understanding of life and his bequest of his violin to Rothschild, who also plays in the Jewish band with Ivanov a... more

Rothschild's Violin (Russian: Скрипка Ротшильда) is a one-act opera by Russian composer Veniamin Fleishman (1913-1941) set to the Russian libretto by the composer after the short story Rothschild's Fiddle by Anton Chekhov. The opera centres on the bitter central character, Yakov Ivanov, a coffin-maker and amateur fiddler, his gradual understanding of life and his bequest of his violin to Rothschild, who also plays in the Jewish band with Ivanov and whom he has treated with contempt. Between 1939 and 1941, the young Fleishman was one of Dmitri Shostakovich's most promising students at the Leningrad Conservatory, where he composed his first work, a one-act opera entitled Rothschild's Violin. His mentor had suggested Anton Chekhov's story as the basis for the libretto. Setting his tale in an Eastern Europe "shtetl" at the end of the 19th century, Fleishman paid a musical homage to a world on the verge of extinction. On June 22, 1941, Hitler, violating the non-aggression pact he had... less