Tchaikovsky’s last opera, Iolanta, first appeared on stage a year before the composer’s death, in 1892. It had been conceived as part of a mixed performance, and the premiere of the opera shared a double bill with the two-act ballet The Nutcracker. The musical kinship of both scores is undeniable, but today Iolanta is more likely to exist separately from The Nutcracker on the theatrical stage.
The charm and popularity of solo performances, minor form and a fairy-tale plot with a happy ending have made Iolanta a convenient material for final projects of conservatoire students and an attractive repertoire title for the Russian public. However, behind the facade of a beautiful fairy tale, one can discern a symbolist drama. The characters talk a lot, but they are not engaged in external action mainly; there are hidden meanings in their speeches. In the center of the story there is a blind heroine, who, however, does not need light “to know the beauty of the universe”.
The play Kong Renés Datter (King René’s Daughter) by the Danish poet Henrik Hertz (1845) was familiar to the Russian public in the translation by Vladimir Zotov. It responded to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s desire to write an opera based on “a plot not of this world”. The composer found both the story itself and the libretto written by his brother Modest Tchaikovsky, to be poetic. Pyotr Ilyich must have been captivated by a heroine who does not consider herself unhappy, because she is warmed by faith, and is ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of love. The musical dramaturgy is structured as a movement from darkness to light. The restless obsession of the Introduction gives way to the anthem of light and the laudatory prayer in the Finale.
Leila Abbasova
