The Stone Guest (play)
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The Stone Guest (Russian: «Каменный гость», romanized: Kamennyy gost') is a poetic drama by Alexander Pushkin based on the Spanish legend of Don Juan.
Pushkin wrote The Stone Guest in 1830 as part of a collection of four short plays known as Little Tragedies. The play is based on the familiar Don Juan legend (translated with the archaic Russian spelling of Don Guan (Дон Гуан)), but while most traditional adaptations present it as farcical and comedic, Pushkin's "little tragedy" is indeed a romantic tragedy. Save for the duel, there is little action, and though written in the form of a play, scholars agree that it was never meant for the stage.[citation needed]
Pushkin wrote the play after seeing the premiere of a Russian-language version of Mozart's 1787 opera Don Giovanni. He borrowed certain elements from da Ponte's libretto, but made the story his own, focusing more on the tragic romantic elements than on the farcical ones.
