A Life for the Tsar
After returning from Italy, he is full of desire to write a Russian opera. Vasily Zhukovsky proposes a subject: a exploit of Ivan Susanin. Tsar Nicholas I changes the name of the opera to "A Life for the Tsar" and assigns a librettist - Baron Georg von Rosen. When Glinka meets him, he is shocked: Rosen speaks Russian with a noticeable German accent. The premiere is successful, but Glinka is still not entirely happy with the libretto: "Rosen wrote the wrong words".