is this guy deaf?

It was wildly off the Shakespearean topic already, GG, and my rambling was woeful in extremis.   I think what I'd meant to say is that I feel composers have avoided Chekhov because it's already replete with all the nuances of atmosphere and character...  the scalpel taken to it to reduce it to libretto-length would break the surgical maxim of "do no harm" - the result might well be a piece that was less than the original, rather than more, or the same.   Most librettists carve their material from the plot of the original, and discard the original versification in favour of their own.  I can't see how you could do this easily with Chekhov, since the plot-material is so highly incidental to the effect of the play.  "Uncle Vanya is very put-upon by his employer, the Professor"...   "The Cherry-Orchard is sold"...   these aren't "plots" in the way that the Shakespearean opera-plots (OTELLO, FALSTAFF/MWW) function.  I'd like to believe, in my naive little Guardian-reading dreamworld, that a different kind of opera,  more emotion/atmosphere-centred than the blood'n'guts world of dastardly murders of long-lost brothers might perhaps inhabit this Chekhovian world?

I haven't heard Peter Eotvos's THREE SISTERS either - perhaps I am too easily dissuaded against it by the radical approach to casting the three title roles adopted by the composer, which seems to smack of success-de-scandale?  The approach seems to throw enormous barriers between the piece and the audience, rather than bring them closer together.  Perhaps I have been spending too much time on TOP recently


I'm on board with that, Ronbo

Whilst searching for a Musical Connections answer, I noticed that Malipiero had composed operas founded on Julius Cæsar and Anthony and Cleopatra: the former apparently dedicated to Mussolini in the hope that it might win back his favour after offending him with a previous choice of subject.

It didn't.