“Dear Toly,— ... Solitude is a very good thing, and I like it—in moderation. To-day is the eighth day since I left Russia, and during the whole of this time I have not exchanged a friendly word with anyone. Except the hotel servants and railway officials, no human being has heard a word from my lips. I saunter through the city all the morning and have certainly seen most glorious things: the Colosseum, the Capitol, the Vatican, the Pantheon, and, finally—the loftiest triumph of human genius—St. Peter’s. Since the midday meal I have been to the Corso, but here I was overcome by such ‘spleen’ that I am striving to shake it off by writing letters and drinking tea.... Except for certain historical and artistic sights, Rome itself, with its narrow streets, is not interesting, and I cannot understand spending one’s whole life here, as many Russians do. I have sufficient funds to travel all over Italy. As regards money, from the moment I left Russia I have not ceased to reproach myself for my unfeeling egotism. If you only knew how my conscience has pricked me! But I had made up my mind to travel through Italy. It is too foolish; if I had wanted distraction I might just as well have gone to Kiev or the Crimea—it would have been cheap and as good. Dear Toly, I embrace you heartily. What would I give to see you suddenly appear on the scene!”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Florence, April 27th (May 9th), 1874.
“You are thinking: ‘Lucky fellow, first he writes from Venice and then from Florence.’ Yet all the while, Modi, you cannot imagine anyone who suffers more than I do. At Naples it came to such a pass that every day I shed tears from sheer home-sickness and longing for my dear folk.... But the chief ground of all my misery is The Oprichnik. Finally, the same terrible weather has followed me here. The Italians cannot remember a similar spring. At Naples, where I spent six days, I saw nothing, because in bad weather the town is impassable. The last two days it was impossible to go out. I fled post-haste, and shall go straight to Sasha[37] without stopping at Milan. I have very good grounds for avoiding Milan, for I hear from a certain Stchurovsky that the performance of A Life for the Tsar will be bungled.... In Florence I only had time to go through the principal streets, which pleased me very much. I hate Rome, and Naples too; the devil take them both! There is only one town in the world for me—Moscow, and perhaps I might add Paris.”
Without waiting for the performance of A Life for the Tsar at Milan, which did not take place until May 8th (20th), Tchaikovsky returned to Moscow early in this month.
For a short time his dissatisfaction with The Oprichnik filled him with such doubt of his powers that his spirits flagged. But his energy quickly recovered itself. No sooner had he returned to Moscow, than he was possessed by an intense desire to prove to himself and others that he was equal to better things than The Oprichnik. The score of this work seemed like a sin, for which he must make reparation at all costs. There was but one way of atonement—to compose a new opera which should have no resemblance to The Oprichnik, and should wipe out the memory of that unhappy work.
In the course of this season, the Russian Musical Society organised a prize competition for the best setting of the opera, Vakoula the Smith.
While Serov was still engaged upon his opera, The Power of the Evil One, he was suddenly seized with a desire to compose a Russian comic opera, and chose a fantastic poem by Gogol. When he informed his patroness, the Grand Duchess Helena Pavlovna, of his project, she declared herself willing to have a libretto prepared by the poet Polonsky at her own cost. Serov died before he had time to begin the opera, and the Grand Duchess resolved to honour his memory by offering two prizes for the best setting of the libretto he had been unable to use. In January, 1873, the Grand Duchess Helena died, and the directors of the Imperial Musical Society proceeded to carry out her wishes with regard to the libretto of Vakoula the Smith.
The latest date at which the competitors might send in their scores to the jury was fixed for August 1st (13th) 1875. The successful opera was afterwards to be performed at the Imperial Opera House in Petersburg.
At first Tchaikovsky hesitated to take part in the competition, lest he should be unsuccessful. But having read Polonsky’s libretto, he was fascinated. The originality and captivating local colour, as well as the really poetical lyrics with which the book is interspersed, commended it to Tchaikovsky’s imagination, so that he could no longer resist the impulse to set it to music. At the same time he feared the competition, not so much because he desired the prize, as because, in the event of failure, he could not hope to see his version of the libretto produced at the Imperial Opera. This was his actual motive in trying to discover, before finally deciding the matter, whether Anton Rubinstein, Balakirev, or Rimsky-Korsakov were intending to compete. As soon as he had ascertained that these rivals were not going to meet him in the field, he threw himself into the task with ardour.