In 1906, Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff had his heart set on turning popular Belgian poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Monna Vanna into an opera.
Unfortunately, Rachmaninoff began work on Monna Vanna before he had secured the rights to do so. Rachmaninoff had already finished parts of a piano score for his opera when in 1907 he learned that Maeterlinck had granted the rights to another composer. Rachmaninoff was crushed with disappointment and stopped work on his opera, but years later when Rachmaninoff sat down at the piano to play for friends, he would sometimes include melodies from his abandoned project.
One of those who heard him play those melodies was the much younger Russian conductor Igor Buketoff, who said he was too embarrassed at the time to ask the composer to identify the unfamiliar music. Decades later, Buketoff was startled to recognize those same tunes as he looked over Rachmaninoff’s unfinished piano score for Monna Vanna, which had ended up at the Library of Congress.
Buketoff orchestrated the surviving portions of Rachmaninoff’s opera for their premiere performances, which occurred on today’s date in 1984, at a summertime music festival in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) arr. Igor Buketoff: Monna Vanna; soloists; Iceland Symphony; Igor Buketoff, conductor; Chandos 8987