Aleko

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s opera Aleko, based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies, tells a tragic story of love and jealousy in a Gypsy camp. The protagonist, Aleko, an outcast from society, finds refuge among the Gypsies and falls in love with Zemfira, the daughter of the tribe’s elder. Their happiness is short-lived when Zemfira grows cold towards Aleko and leaves him for another man. In a fit of jealousy, Aleko kills both Zemfira and her lover and is cast out of the camp as punishment.