The plan for Mavra, a comic opera in one act to a libretto by Boris Kochno, was born in 1921 while Stravinsky was in London for a revival of Le sacre du printemps. Inspired by a novella by Pushkin, it tells a simple story with a surprise ending.
The last of the three one-act plays that make up Puccini's “Trittico", Gianni Schicchi, narrates the farc antics of the protagonist of the title, a Florentine scoundrel cited by Dante in the Divina Commedia for having forged a will. The action takes place in Florence in 1299. The Donati family is in turmoil after the death of their relative Buoso who seems to have donated his considerable inheritance to a convent.
