Background
Stepan Alexandrovich Gedeonov was born on June 13, 1815, in Saint Petersburg City, Russian Federation.
1881
Portarait by Pyotr Borel
Academy of Sciences
State Hermitage Museum
Saint Petersburg University
Academy of Sciences
State Hermitage Museum
(In 1867, when Gedeonov became Director of the Imperial th...)
In 1867, when Gedeonov became Director of the Imperial theaters, he began working on a drama from the era of Ivan the terrible and invited Ostrovsky to become a co-author. After receiving the manuscript from Gedeonov, Ostrovsky made radical changes to it: he rewrote most of the poetic text, and replaced the prose with verses and added the last two actions with verses. Rejecting the idea of Gedeonov to make the heroine of the play Queen Anna, the playwright put in the center of another, more complex and bright character, after whom he called the drama - "Vasilisa Melenteva".
http://ostrovskiy.lit-info.ru/ostrovskiy/dramaturgiya/vasilisa-melenteva.htm
1868
historian playwright art critic theatrical figure
Stepan Alexandrovich Gedeonov was born on June 13, 1815, in Saint Petersburg City, Russian Federation.
Stepan Alexandrovich had at least one musical project of his own, Mlada, originally envisioned as a ballet to be composed by Alexander Serov. After the latter's death, the idea was revised in 1872 as a 4-act opera-ballet, with a libretto by Viktor Krylov. The composition of the score was divided between César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin. The project was never completed, Ludwig Minkus came up with a ballet of the same name which was produced by Marius Petipa in Saint Petersburg in 1879. Later Rimsky-Korsakov revived the original idea and wrote his own ballet-opera Mlada, premiered in 1892.
Vasilisa Melentyeva, the play that Stepan Alexandrovich wrote later in his life, suffered a somewhat similar fate. Dissatisfied with his own effort, he passed the text to Alexander Ostrovsky, and the latter used the plot to write the completely new play of the same title.
Stepan Alexandrovich authored one original play, The Death of Lyapunov (1845) which was produced by Alexandrinsky Theatre and had considerable success, running for 18 performances in its first season. Later, as the director of the Imperial Theatres, Stepan Alexandrovich refused to give permission for it to be produced, describing it as his "childish fallacy".
(In 1867, when Gedeonov became Director of the Imperial th...)
1868In 1863 Stepan Alexandrovich was elected the honorable member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
