a Russian composer, singer, violinist and teacher who lived during the time of Catherine the Great. Pashkevich wrote important comic operas, often re-working them at length. His style is similar to Italian opera buffa, but unlike them, the comic situations of his works are often overshadowed by vaguely tragic scenes. His operas are full of citations of popular songs, that later become one of the important characteristics of the great 19th-century Russian opera.
