The Stone Guest

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The Stone Guest (Каменный гость in Cyrillic, Kamennyj gost' in transliteration) is a poetic drama by Aleksandr Pushkin based on the Spanish legend of Don Juan. The Stone Guest was written in 1830 as part of his four short plays known as the The Little Tragedies. The Stone Guest is based on the familiar Don Juan legend, 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, it is agreed by scholars that it was never meant for the stage.

Pushkin's play was written in 1830, after he saw the premiere of Russian-language version of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Pushkin borrowed certain elements from da Ponte's libretto, but made the story his own, focusing more on the tragic romantic elements than on the farcial ones.

Pushkin's "little tragedy" was later turned into an opera of the same name, set to music nearly exactly to Pushkin's verse by Alexander Dargomyzhsky.