Debuts in the opera Mazepa

“Poltava really appeals to me,” the composer wrote, “One fine day I reread Pushkin’s poem and was touched by several beautiful scenes and the verses; I began with the scene featuring Maria and Mazepa which I have included in the libretto, unaltered from the poem.” It is noteworthy that by the time Tchaikovsky turned to the poem there were already operas based on it; one was called Poltava, the other Maria and the fact that the composer named his own work after the disgraced hetman, essentially a negative character in both Pushkin’s poem and in Russian history, was not by chance. The composer presents Mazepa as a complex, rebellious character, somehow even rather attractive to the audience, specifically his love “while up in years” for Maria, the daughter of the “rich and mighty” Kochubei.

Over the past two seasons soprano Yekaterina Goncharova has made successful debuts in numerous key roles including those of Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) and Micaëla (Carmen). On 4 November she will be performing the role of the unhappy Maria, who is admired by Mazepa and whose reason cannot survive the terrible disaster that life throws at her – the death of her father, defamed and sentenced to death by her cruel lover. Bass Oleg Sychov will be appearing as Orlik, Mazepa’s crafty comrade-in-arms who tortures Kochubei who is loyal to the Russian crown and makes him admit where his riches are hidden.