Orango

The libretto was written by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Alexander Osipovich Starchakov. Since Orango is the protagonist of the opera, half-ape and half-man, one of the sources of inspiration for the libretto was the work of Russian biologist, Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov who attempted hybridization of humans and other primates. According to McBurney, the word suggests orangutan. :38 Shostakovich had visited Ivanov's primate research station in Sukhumi and "recommended it as a sight worth seeing."