The lengthy full title of both the opera and the poem is The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovich and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan (Russian: Сказка о царе Салтане, о сыне его славном и могучем богатыре князе Гвидоне Салтановиче и о прекрасной царевне Лебеди Skazka o tsare Saltane, o syne yego slavnom i moguchem bogatyre knyaze Gvidone Saltanoviche i o prekrasnoy tsarevne Lebedi).

The plot of the opera generally follows that of Pushkin's fairy-tale poem, with the addition of some characters, some expansion (particularly for Act 1), and some compression (mostly by reducing Gvidon's three separate trips to one).

The libretto by Belsky borrows many lines from and largely emulates the style of Pushkin's poem, which is written in couplets of trochaic tetrameter.

September 1] 1911, while he was attending a performance of the opera at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the Tsar and his family, the Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the chest, dying two days later; his assassin, Dmitri Bogrov, was both a leftist radical and an agent of the Okhrana.

[1] In April 1987 four complete performances of the opera were presented in a fully staged English-language production at Indiana University Bloomington.

The old woman Babarikha devises a revenge for the two jealous older sisters ("Nu, tak slushat, ne meshat" = "Then listen well and don’t interrupt"): when the Tsar is away at war, a message will be sent to him that the child born to his Tsaritsa is not human, but a monster.

The young Tsarevich baby, who has been lulled to sleep during this scene, awakens and runs about, accompanied by his nurses, and the people wish God's blessings upon him.

He sings "Gosudarynya moya, ne veli kaznit menya" ("Your highness, don’t punish me"), and his message from the Tsar is read by the scribes: the Tsaritsa and her progeny must be placed in a barrel and thrown into the sea.

Scene 1 By the shore of Buyan, the merchant ships have left, and Gvidon laments having been separated from his father ("Veter po moryu gulyayet" = "The wind blows over the sea").

Babarikha then tries to trump the sailors, by speaking of a fabulous Princess on the sea, at which point Gvidon stings her in the eye and blinds her.

Saltan decides to visit the island, but, in view of the havoc caused by the bumblebee, forbids that breed of insect from ever entering the palace again.

Scene 1 Gvidon, again by the seashore of Buyan, longs for a bride ("V sinem more zvyozdy bleshchut" = "Over the blue sea stars shine").

Orchestral interlude — Three Wonders Scene 2 Gvidon, with his mother hidden, awaits the arrival of Saltan.