MAVRA / IOLANTA

Igor Stravinsky: Mavra

The young Parasha's mother is pleased, as she seems to be the perfect replacement for the cook that has just died. Mavra is happy with little wages and asks for little else. But why does she behave so strangely? Is she stealing from the distrustful mother, as she suspects, or do she and Parasha share a completely different secret at the end? 

Stravinsky's Opera is based on the verse poem The Little House in Kolomna by Alexander Pushkin and is a comedic love story built on travesty. The piece from Stravinsky's neo-classical period (the première was in Paris in 1922) nevertheless refers to Russian Romanticism, and even appears at times to let a little ragtime ring out.

Peter I. Tchaikovsky: Iolanta

Princess Iolanta's sadness is based on her intuition: By order of her father King René she is kept from knowing she has been blind from birth. Sequestered for the most part in a remote castle in Provence, she also knows nothing of her noble lineage – but senses that something is being kept from her. With the appearance of the Moorish doctor Ibn-Hakia and two knights with differing intentions, events that will change Iolanta's life on every level begin to happen.

Tchaikovsky's last opera premiered in St. Petersberg in 1892 together with his ballet, The Nutcracker; the piece was first performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 1847, and has not been performed there since. Time for a comeback!