Aleksandr Borodin/Wright & Forrest

Aleksandr Porfir'yevich Borodin's (1834-1887) _Prince Igor_ was first performed in 1890, about 3 years after Borodin's death. It is from this opera's score that Robert Wright and George Forrest drew some of the music for the musical play _Kismet_ (1953).

A note at this URL:

   http://www.classiccd.co.uk/reference/composers/borodin.html

states that Borodin's motives "were stolen by Wright and Forrest for their musical _Kismet_ almost the day Borodin's music came out of copyright". This seems to be a mistake, or an exaggeration. (The note also gets the date of Borodin's death wrong. Borodin died in 1887, not 1897). It is possible that the U.S. copyright in _Prince Igor_ expired in the early 1950s (when _Kismet_ was being written), but there would have to have been a delay of several years between the premiere of _Prince Igor_ in 1890 and the publication of the music.

Does anyone on-list have any information about the publication history or the U.S. copyright history of Borodin's music, and _Prince Igor_ in particular ? The sources I have been able to consult mention the opera's premiere in 1890 but make no mention of the score's publication.

Tim Phillips
<hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> Received on Sun Jun 11 2000 - 00:23:06 GMT