Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky (, ;  – September 27, 1944) was a Russian chemist and photographer. He is best known for his pioneering work in colour photography and his effort to document early 20th-century Russia.
The Golden Cockerel
The work on "The Golden Cockerel" was started in 1906 and finished by September 1907. On February two symphonies were performed in Saint Petersburg. By the end of the month the director of Imperial Theatres Vladimir Telyakovskiy passed it to the censorship agency in order to get an approval for the Bolshoi Theatre. It was returned unedited, yet suddenly taken back the next day. This time many changes were requested to be made to the libretto as well as the original Pushkin's text. Rimsky-Korsakov suspected someone's denunciation and resisted any changes. He continued the work on orchestration while fighting with progressive illness. On June Telyakovskiy informed him that the Moscow Governor-General Sergei Gershelman was highly against the opera. In his last letter Rimsky-Korsakov asked his friend and music publisher Boris Jurgenson to contact Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi and suggest him to stage "The Golden Cockerel" in Paris. He passed away two days later and thus never witnessed the premiere of his last opera.