Mazepa

Tchaikovsky's opera Mazepa (1884), based on Pushkin’s poem Poltava, is a tragic tale of the love between Maria, politics, persecution and revenge. Mazepa focuses on a tragic love story between a young woman Maria (Maria Bayankina) and the much older Mazepa (Vladislav Sulimsky), Tsar Peter the Great’s appointed Cossack leader. Maria runs off with Mazepa, and in retaliation her father Kochubey (Stanislav Trofimov), warns the Tsar of Mazepa’s treasonous plans to ally with Sweden. When the Tsar does not believe the accusation, the sequence of events that follows leads to the destruction of Maria and her family. Recorded Live at the Mariinsky June 2 and June 9, 2019.