The Taming of the Shrew (Russian Ukroshchenye stroptivoy, Cyrillic Укрощение строптивой) is a 1957 opera in four acts, five scenes by Vissarion Shebalin to a libretto by the Soviet musicologist Abram Akimovich Gozenpud, based on the comedy by William Shakespeare. Gozenpud utilized very little of Shakespeare's original text in his libretto, and completely eliminated many of the secondary characters and subplots from the play. His libretto does match the spirit of Shakespeare's play in its use of wit, the genuine passion of the story's lovers, and mixture of both lofty and coarse language.[1]