On February 27 and 28, 2025, the Chamber Hall of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre will present a new director’s version of the opera Mavra by Igor Stravinsky, staged by Vyacheslav Starodubtsev.
This one-act comic opera is composed after Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Little House in Kolomna. Its plot is based on the love story of a modest girl Parasha and a young hussar Vasily, who, in order to reunite with his beloved one, enters her family’s house under the guise of a cook Mavra.
In his production, Vyacheslav Starodubtsev resorts to a synthesis of drama and opera theatrical tools: musical scenes are interspersed with spoken monologues, where the text from The Little House in Kolomna, originally not included into the libretto, is used as basis. Those scenes are performed by an actor made up to look like Pushkin who introduces the operatic events and comments on them; sometimes, “Pushkin” acts as a direct participant on the stage. The opera premiered in Vladivostok in November 2015. After its success on its home stage, in 2018 the performance was presented in Saint Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, marking the first tour of the Vladivostok opera company.
The performance will return to the Chamber Hall of the Primorsky Stage in the public’s favorite scenery, but with some new accents. Also, it will complement a number of iconic works by Igor Stravinsky that have recently appeared in the Theatre’s repertoire: Les Noces and Petrouchka ballets.
Vyacheslav Starodubtsev, Stage Director, commented:
“I really love to return to this or that content now and then. This allows one to delve deeper into the material and to truly reveal its musical dramaturgy. Today, it is important for the cast to find new facets and depths of Stravinsky’s music and Pushkin’s texts which haven’t lost their relevance even after a century. Now we have found a unique acting style for each artist, and have also added another image that Pushkin’s character embodies, and that’s Cupid. At the same time, the basis of the director’s concept of the performance remains unaltered, representing a synthesis of several genres, namely opera, ballet and drama theatre. I am sure that the passion, talent and creative fervor that the audiences will encounter in this performance will come as a great pleasure and surprise for them!”
