Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Umberto Giordano
Gioachino Rossini
Francesco Cilea
Richard Wagner
Richard Strauss
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Georges Bizet
Gioacchino Rossini
Alexander Ostrovsky, music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
César Cui. Igor Stravinsky
Richard Strauss
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dimitry Rostovsky
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Hector Berlioz
Gaetano Donizetti
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Modest Mussorgsky
Andrei Rubtsov
Sergei Prokofiev. Maurice Ravel
Alexei Verstovsky
Giuseppe Verdi
Anton Rubinstein
Benjamin Britten. Camille Saint-Saëns
Mieczysław Weinberg
Sergei Banevich
Modest Mussorgsky
Grigory Frid. Udo Zimmermann
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Georg Philipp Telemann
Sergei Prokofiev
Giacomo Puccini
Dmitry Shostakovich
Tatiana Kamysheva
Georges Bizet
Giacomo Puccini
Jacques Offenbach
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Dmitry Shostakovich
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Giuseppe Verdi
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
The world premiere of the opera Mazeppa by Pyotr Tchaikovsky took place at the Bolshoi Theatre on the 3rd of February (old style) 1884. The production was spectacular also thanks to the cast. According to the brother of the composer, Modest Tchaikovsky, “never has a new Russian opera in Moscow been staged more precisely in term of the consistency of style and detailing”. Emiliya Pavlovskaya (Maria) and Bogomir Korsov (Mazeppa) were particularly successful amongst the soloists.
Further recreations and new productions of the opera at the Bolshoi followed regularly: over almost one and a half centuries, there have been seven of them. The presence of Mazeppa on the Historic Stage is natural: the opera is written for voices of large range and is incredibly difficult for singers (the parts are comparable to Wagnerian). The outstanding artists of the Bolshoi performed in this opera: Pantelejmon Norcov, Alexei Ivanov, Pavel Lisitsian, Yuri Mazurok (Mazeppa), Ksenia Derzhinskaya, Tamara Milashkina, Nina Rautio (Maria), Ivan Petrov, Artur Aisen, Evgeny Nesterenko (Kochubey), Nadezhda Obukhova, Vera Davydova, Irina Arkhipova (Lyubov), Georgy Nelepp and Vladimir Atlantov (Andrei).
Premiered on June 23, 2021.
Presented with two intervals.
Libretto by Pyotr Tchaikovsky based on Alexander Pushkin's poem Poltava, with partial use of a libretto by Viktor Burenin
Sunday, 14:00
Saturday, 19:00
Friday, 19:00
Thursday, 19:00
Wednesday, 19:00
Sunday, 14:00
Saturday, 19:00
Friday, 19:00
Thursday, 19:00
Sunday, 14:00
Saturday, 19:00
Friday, 19:00
Thursday, 19:00
Wednesday, 19:00
Wednesday, 19:00
Tuesday, 19:00
Sunday, 14:00
Saturday, 19:00
Friday, 19:00
Aсt I
Young girls are telling their fortunes. Maria, Kochubey’s daughter, runs in, excited that the hetman Mazeppa has arrived. The young girl has fallen in love with him and cannot imagine life without him. Andrei, a young Cossack, is in love with Maria and tells her of his deep love. But Maria’s thoughts are only of Mazeppa. Andrei comes to realize the futility of his hopes.
After the grand feast in Mazeppa’s honor, Mazeppa asks Kochubey for his youngest daughter’s hand in marriage. Kochubey is stunned: Maria is the hetman’s god daughter, and he is much older than she. Mazeppa presses the issue and Kochubey demands that he leave the house. Their quarrel attracts the attention of the other guests and Kochubey’s retainers. Finally Mazeppa suggests that Maria make the choice: her father or him? Maria choses the hetman, and runs off with him.
Kochubey’s wife, Lyubov, is in despair. Weeping for her daughter who has abandoned her father’s house, she calls on her husband to take decisive action against Mazeppa. Kochubey has long wanted to tell Peter the Great of Mazeppa’s secret plans to make the Ukraine an independent state, allied with the Swedish King Charles XII. Iskra, Kochubey’s friend, suggests that Kochubey send a rider to the capital at once, to give warning of the hetman’s planned treachery. Andrei is entrusted with the letter to the Czar.