The Nightingale and the Rose (opera)

The opera was written at the request of Paul Esterházy, the director of the Ulm Theatre in Germany.

Firsova created the libretto combining the text from Oscar Wilde's fairy-tale, taken from the collection The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888), with four poems by Christina Rossetti.

However, the idea of the staging in Germany was abandoned when Paul Esterházy suddenly left the Ulm Theatre.

It was premiered on July 8, 1994 (with subsequent performances on July 9, 16, 18 and 20) at the Almeida Theatre by Almeida Opera, with the singers Rachael Hallawell (mezzo-soprano), Philip Sheffield (tenor), and Carol Smith (soprano), designer Julian McGowan, stage director Caroline Gawn, and conductor David Parry.

Publishing rights: Flute (=piccolo), oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, 3 percussion players (triangle, Indian jingles, whip, maracas, bamboo pipes, pagoda jingles, bass drum, suspended cymbals, bells, Chinese gong, Javanese gong, tamtam, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone), harp, celesta, strings (1/1/1/1/1) The music of the opera was described by one critic as follows: "...her intricate chamber-score is so delicately, rapturously, expiringly romantic that we hearkened to it all without complaint."