I was just thinking that a revival in popular culture of the love story of Conchita Arguello and Nikolai Rezanov was long overdue, when I found out from my lovely daughter-in-law that the Russians have already taken care of the matter.

The newest incarnation of Nikolai and Conchita is not in a book, but in an opera: a Russian-language rock-opera. The opera’s title, Juno and Avos, comes from the names of the two Russian ships that sailed from Alaska to California. (Juno was the Roman goddess of marriage and wife of Jupiter, Avos is a Russian expression of hope or trusting in luck.)

Juno and Avos is a rock opera with music by Alexey Rybnikov and poetry by Andrei Voznesensky. It was first performed in 1981 in Moscow and has been performed a few times in the West. Here is the final duet, a beautiful lament by the separated lovers.

I must say, nobody knows how to write beautiful, heart-felt music like the Russians.