…Last year I was busy orchestrating Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina and composing an operetta, entitled Moscow, Cheryomushki, which is to be put on by the Operetta Theatre in Moscow. (….) I have been genuinely delighted by my work with the talented Moscow Operetta Theatre company and by the high level of musical literacy shown by all its components, especially the excellent orchestra, choir and soloists. The Theatre’s musical director is the talented conductor Grigori Stolyarov, who has the knack of firing the enthusiasm of the whole company. I have also appreciated the company’s kindly attitude towards a new work by a composer with little experience in the genre. / I do not think that this work has been a waste of time for me. I love the light, joyful genre of operetta and rate highly the work of the genre’s masters such as Johann Strauss, Kálmán, Lehar, Offenbach and Lecocq, and hope that my first operetta will live up to their standards and win the hearts of our wonderful Soviet audiences.