Drigo, Riccardo

(Richard Evgen’evich Drigo). Born June 30, 1846, in Padua; died there Oct. 1, 1930. Composer and conductor.

By nationality Drigo was Italian and received his musical education at the Venice Conservatory. He worked in Russia for more than 40 years: beginning in 1879 as the conductor of the Italian Opera in St. Petersburg and after 1886 as a conductor and composer for the Imperial Ballet. Under Drigo’s direction (in collaboration with ballet masters M. I. Petipa and L. I. Ivanov) premieres were staged in St. Petersburg of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s ballets The Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892), and Swan Lake (1895) and of A. K. Gla- zunov’s Raimonda (1898). Drigo wrote many ballets, including The Talisman (1899) and Harlequin’s Millions (1900), and several operas. In 1920, Drigo returned to Italy.