The Mayflower Southampton

Welsh National Opera
Tchaikovsky's Mazepa

Sat 17 June 2006

6.30pm Sung in Russian with English surtitles Pre-Performance Talk: 5.30pm

Tchaikovsky's searing Mazepa takes inspiration from Pushkin's epic poem Poltava, which was written immediately after Eugene Onegin, and depicts actual events and people from the reign of Peter the Great. Part of WNO's Russian Series, it is a work of great lyricism, grand passions, political intrigue and strong characters.

The opera follows the enigmatic and middle-aged Ukranian military leader Mazepa as he falls in love with Maria, the young daughter of a wealthy landowner Kochubey, a Cossack judge.

Denied the judge's blessing to marry, Mazepa and Maria decide to elope, an action which compels Kochubey to reveal Mazepa's secret revolutionary plans - a plot to turn the Ukraine into an independent state - to Tsar Peter the Great.

What follows is a climactic series of shocking betrayals, heart-pounding duels and a tragic descent into madness, conveyed through Tchaikovsky's glorious music.

"Welsh National Opera hits the bullseye with a viscerally thrilling new production of Tchaikovsky's Mazepa, a work increasingly recognised alongside Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades as one of his supreme achievements."

- Daily Telegraph