The Tale of Tsar Saltan is a 1900 opera by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, based on Alexander Pushkin's fairytale of the same name.
Tropes present in the opera:
- Adaptation Expansion: Militrisa's brief time as tsaritsa, her and Gvidon's first hours on the island, and Saltan's arrival on the island are shown in way more detail than in the book.
- Adaptational Badass: A very minor case, since Militrisa is still mostly a passive Damsel in Distress, but in the book, it's Gvidon who pleads with the waves to bring them to shore, while here, his mother does it before they are even put into the barrel.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: In the fairytale, Babarikha appears after the tsar's wedding. Here, she is shown in the opening scenes watching over the sisters.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- The two elder sisters in the fairytale are only portrayed as villainous after the younger sister's wedding. Here, they act as Big Sister Bullies to her before Tsar Saltan even appears; they are also depicted as extremely lazy, while the original never mentions that.
- Although his remorse in the final act is depicted much more poignantly than in the book, Saltan is also hit with this trope in the beginning. In the book, the youngest sister's reaction to their First Date Marriage isn't shown in detail, so it is implied she agrees to it from the start. Here, when he appears out of the blue and declares his intent to marry Militrisa, she begs him to give her some time to think it over, but he flat-out tells her that Might Makes Right and she isn't in the position to refuse him. In some productions, the singers try to mitigate the exchange by portraying Militrisa's uncertainty as I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me rather than actual reluctance to go through with the marriage and having Saltan deliver his lines with playfulness and irony, implying he wouldn't really have forced her to marry if she had indeed been unwilling.
- Ascended Extra: Downplayed with the tsaritsa. In the fairytale, she does very little after the beginning. Although she is still a secondary character in the opera, her personality is fleshed out, and she is given several scenes with her courtiers and her son.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: What the two elder sisters claim to be, saying that they can best anyone at handicrafts but are too lazy to spin and weave. Amazingly enough, on Rewatch Bonus one can see that at least the Cook is telling the truth: in the third act, the merchants are absolutely delighted with the royal feast and literally sing praises to the food and drinks.
- Canon Foreigner: The Court Jester and the Old Grandfather never appear in the original fairytale.
- Compressed Adaptation: Gvidon's three flights to his father's palace and the merchants' three consecutive visits are merged into a single scene. Likewise, Gvidon is never shown asking the swan to bring him the magical squirrel and the thirty-three bogatyrs: by the time of his flight to Saltan's country, both of these wonders are already present on the island.
- Demoted to Extra: Not that they are prominent characters in the book, but here, the thirty-three bogatyrs and Chernomor only appear in one short scene, and it's never mentioned that the bogatyrs are Princess Swan's brothers.
- Falsely Reformed Villain: The elder sisters and Babarikha pretend to become nice and affectionate towards Militrisa after she marries the tsar. However, they are plotting against her behind her back.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four lead characters. Saltan is choleric (impulsive, passionate and hot-tempered), Gvidon is sanguine (cheerful, energetic and charismatic), Militrisa is melancholic (brooding, quiet and reserved) and Princess Swan is phlegmatic (level-headed, friendly and ready to help).
- I Should Write a Book About This: In the final scene, the Old Grandfather, a storyteller, announces that as soon as he gets home, he'll start turning the opera's events into a story, with some Artistic License involved.
- Long-Lived: The Old Grandfather had been invited to the court as storyteller during the reign of Saltan's grandfather.
- Manchild: Gvidon's psychological development is a bit behind his physical Rapid Aging. When he and Militrisa find themselves brought to the island, he starts admiring flowers and catching butterflies. However, he fairly quickly grows out of it.
- Named by the Adaptation: The tsaritsa is given the name Militrisa (although it is All There in the Script).
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: As Gvidon and Princess Swan point out, they would have never met and gotten married, if it hadn't been for the plotting of Militrisa's sisters and Babarikha.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: After hosting a grand welcome for Saltan, Gvidon very politely asks him about his family, knowing that it would unsettle him but wishing to hear his side of the story. Saltan breaks into tears and blames his wife's disappearance on himself.
- Rapid Aging: Downplayed compared to Pushkin's text, where Gvidon apparently ages straight from baby to adult inside the barrel. Here, he has two several-year growth spurts while still at his father's palace.
- Role Swap AU: In the original, Gvidon stings each of his aunts in the eye, leaving them half-blind, but takes pity on Babarikha and only stings her on the nose. Here, it's the opposite — the aunts are each stung in the eyebrow, and Babarikha is the one who gets stung in the eye.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Babarikha runs away when she realizes that Militrisa and her son are alive and reunited with Saltan and that therefore she would probably soon get her just deserts for plotting against them.
- Shout-Out: The Old Grandfather's fairytale draws heavily from the text of Pushkin's unfinished The Tale of the She-Bear, except it's made considerably Lighter and Softer (in The Tale of the She-Bear, a bear rallies animals to war after his wife and cubs are killed by humans; in the Old Grandfather's story, he does it after his old boot is destroyed by a flock of geese).
- Universally Beloved Leader: Except for her sisters and Babarikha and, in some stagings, the Jester, everybody loves Militrisa after she becomes tsaritsa. The people are absolutely devastated when they are forced to throw her and her son into the sea.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: More prominent here than in Pushkin's text, considering the fairytale had a more schematic structure while the libretto adds a lot of scenes with realistic character reactions. Many fantastic events (such as the magic city appearing overnight, Princess Swan's ability to talk in her swan form etc.) and even the less fantastic but still highly unusual ones (such as Tsar Saltan's sudden offer of marriage to Militrisa) leave the characters duly amazed and shocked. However, everyone reacts as if Prince Gvidon's spurts of Rapid Aging are nothing out of the ordinary.
- Villainous Harlequin: The Court Jester bullies the Old Grandfather and in some productions is in cahoots with Babarikha, the Cook and the Weaver.
