[5] The Russian translation of Flaubert's 1862 novel was published serially in the Saint Petersburg journal Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1863, and was read with enthusiasm by the six members of the commune in which the composer was then living.

[6] Mussorgsky was likely influenced in his choice of subject by having recently heard Aleksandr Serov's Judith, which premiered on 16 May 1863, and which shares with Salammbô an exotic setting and similar narrative details.

One example of a modern idea is, in the projected scoring for the "Hymn to Tanit" (Act 2, Scene 2), the abundance and variety of percussion, in addition to a mixture of pianos, harps, and glockenspiels of a sort which only reappeared fifty years later.

The first staged performance of Salammbô took place at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, on 29 March 1983 in a version revised and edited by Zoltán Peskó.

It had originally been agreed that the role of Salammbô in these performances would be sung by Lyudmila Shemchuk and that of Mathô by Georgy Seleznev, but the Soviet authorities subsequently withdrew the exit visas of both singers,[13] and they were substituted by Annabelle Bernard and Boris Bakov respectively.

[14] Setting Although no complete synopsis is available, Tedeschi states, it be reconstructed fairly accurately without any effort, since Mussorgsky stays close to the handling of the original.

Scene 1: The rampart of Megara Spendius, a freed slave, urges Mâtho to sneak into Carthage in order to steal the miraculous veil guarded by Salammbô, the Zaimph, which protects the city.

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov gives the following account of thematic borrowing in his memoirs, Chronicle of My Musical Life (1909): «В течение сезона 1866/67 года я более сблизился с Мусоргским.

Я бывал у него, а жил он со своим женатым братом Филаретом близ Кашина моста.

Кажется, тогда же играл он мне свою фантазию «Иванова ночь» для фортепиано с оркестром, затеянную под влиянием «Danse macabre».

Тема этого хора была подслушана Мусоргским у евреев, живших с ним в одном дворе и справлявших праздник кущей.

Запас этот был заготовлен им в «Саламбо» и еврейских хорах, когда он еще мало думал о сером мужике.

Но когда красивая и плавная последовательность удавалась ему, наперекор предвзятым взглядам, как он был счастлив.

[17][18] Several measures of Salammbô's dialogue with the crowd were used in the 1867 tone poem St. John's Eve on the Bare Mountain[19] (but appear rather to have been used in the later adaptation of this work, Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad, 1880): Several musical themes from this project were recycled and played important roles in the composer's subsequent opera Boris Godunov (1869–1872).