The Nightingale (Russian: Соловей, romanized: Solovey) is a short opera in three acts by Igor Stravinsky to a Russian-language libretto by him and Stepan Mitusov, based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen: a Chinese Emperor is reduced to tears and made kind by a small grey bird. It was completed on 28 March 1914 and premiered a few weeks later, on 26 May, by the Ballets Russes conducted by Pierre Monteux at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Publication, by the then Paris-based Éditions Russes de Musique, followed only in 1923 and caused the opera to become known by its French title of Le Rossignol and French descriptor of conte lyrique, or lyric tale, despite its being wholly Russian.

Stravinsky began work on the opera in 1908 but put it aside after receiving the next year the commission from Sergei Diaghilev for the ballet The Firebird. He returned to it in 1913 after he had completed three ballets for Diaghilev, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring being the others. Act 1, set at the seashore, was mostly complete by 1909; acts 2 and 3, set at court, were finished in early 1914. Stravinsky was no doubt aware of the advances in his style and technique during the intervening years.

In 1917, Stravinsky created a separate concert work, a symphonic poem, from music from the opera. It was published in 1921 as Chant du Rossignol (Song of the Nightingale).

For the opera's premiere, the singers were in the pit while their roles were mimed and danced on stage; the mise-en-scène was by Alexandre Benois, who also designed the sets and costumes, and Alexander Sanin; Boris Romanov [ru] was the choreographer. The American premiere took place on 6 March 1926, but in French, at the Metropolitan Opera; this company would perform The Nightingale in its original language for the first time on 3 December 1981.

The Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico presented many operas by Stravinsky during the decade after its founding in 1956. These included, in 1957, The Rake's Progress. Performances of The Nightingale with Stravinsky himself conducting took place in 1962 as part of the composer's 80th birthday celebrations. Other stagings took place in 1963, 1969, 1970 and 1973. In 2014 The Nightingale was paired with Mozart's The Impresario; its action took place in Paris in the 1920s. Santa Fe's cast this time included Brenda Rae, Erin Morley, Meredith Arwady and Anthony Michaels-Moore.

In its 2009 Toronto season, the Canadian Opera Company staged the opera together with shorter works by Stravinsky as The Nightingale and Other Short Fables. This production, directed by Robert Lepage, toured to Japan (the New National Theatre Tokyo),^{[citation needed]} France (2010, Aix-en-Provence Festival), the United States (2011, Brooklyn Academy of Music), Australia (2024 Adelaide Festival).

The Fisherman acts as commentator on the story's events.

At the seashore just before sunrise, a Fisherman hears the song of the Nightingale, which causes him to forget his troubles. The Cook has brought officials from the court of the Emperor to hear the Nightingale, telling of the beauty of its singing. However, the Nightingale is nowhere to be heard. The Court Chamberlain promises the Cook a position as private cook to the Emperor, if she can find the Nightingale, who finally appears, and receives an invitation from the Cook and the Chamberlain to sing for the Emperor. The Nightingale accepts the invitation, but says that its sweetest song is in the forest.