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| | Arts Calendar / June 9 / Opera |
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 Opera to music by Giacomo Puccini, 170 min (with one intermission). In Italian. Puccini is a connoisseur of the female soul. Most of his operas are portraits of women: Manon Lescaut, Tosca, La fanciulla del West, Turandot… Puccini’s favorite topic is “What is love between a Man and a Woman?”. The clash of Masculine and Feminine, the clash of Eastern and Western mentality are the core of Madama Butterfly. Puccini’s music reveals the feelings of the heroes subtly, passionately, unusually accurately following their state of mind. It breathes with poetry, romance and the fragrance of the “oriental” East. In 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, "Butterfly". Her real name is Cio-Cio-san. She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lax. The wedding is to take place at the house. Butterfly had been so excited to marry an American that she had earlier secretly converted to Christianity...
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theater  |
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 Opera in three acts to music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Libretto by Viktor Burenin based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem Poltava. Music Director: Tugan Sokhiev. Stage Director: Evg?ny Pisarev. Set Designer: Zinovy Margolin. Opera is based on Pushkin’s poem Poltava where personal drama is intertwined with critical events of Peter the Great period. The story reaches culmination on narrative about Poltava battle and it provides rich material. The fact is that Tchaikovsky is alien to a ‘grand style’ – thus it is needless to expect such a style of Peter I and Charles XII parts in Mazeppa. What attract composer primarily are characters feelings, emergence and the dynamics of the conflict. Moral aspect of Mazeppa was essential for Pushkin – ‘insidious evil’ he called him: betrayal of Peter I and revenge to Kochubei. Tchaikovsky follows Pushkin's interpretation and does not idealize Mazeppa; however, his hero is more complex and multi-sided. The ability to bend people to his will, backbone for reaching specific goal, authority and ruthlessness, intensity of the feelings – contradictory traits of hetman are revealed in the opera to the fullest. Lyrical aria ‘Oh, Mariya’, which became most popular, was created later (due to request of first Mazeppa performer – Bogomir Korsov). Aria organically completes the image.
Bolshoi Theater |
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