Mavra
Opera
Mavra (Russian: Мавра) is a one-act comic opera composed by Igor Stravinsky, and one of the earliest works of Stravinsky's neo-classical period. The libretto, by Boris Kochno, is based on Alexander Pushkin's The Little House in Kolomna. Mavra is about 25 minutes long, and features two arias, a duet, and a quartet performed by its cast of four characters. The opera has been characterised as both an homage to Russian writers, and a satire of bourgeois manners and the Romeo and Juliet subgenre of romance. Philip Truman has also described the music as satirising 19th-century comic opera. The dedication on the score is to the memory of Pushkin, Glinka and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Mavra premiered at the Théatre national de l'Opéra in Paris on 3 June 1922, under the auspices of Sergei Diaghilev, staged and choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, conducted by Grzegorz Fitelberg, and with Oda Slobodskaya, Stefan Belina-Skupevsky, Zoya Rozovskaya, and Yelena Sadoven in the original cast.
Synopsis
Place: Russian village
Time: Circa 1840
Parasha is in love with her neighbour, Vassili, a young hussar, but they have difficulty in meeting. After they sing a duet, Vassili leaves, and then Parasha's mother enters. She is lamenting the difficulty of finding a new maid-servant after their prior maid-servant, Thecla, died. The mother orders her daughter to find a new maid-servant. Parasha comes up with a scheme to smuggle Vassili into her house disguised as Mavra, a female maid-servant. The ruse initially succeeds, and Parasha and Vassili are happy at being under the same roof. Parasha and her mother go out for a walk. At one moment, Vassili shaves. The ladies return, disconcerted to see their new maid-servant shaving. Vassili escapes out the window, her mother faints, the next door neighbour rushes in to try to help, and Parasha laments the loss of her young love.
- Overture
- Parasha's song
- Hussar's gypsy song
- Dialogue
- The mother's song
- Dialogue
- Duet
- Dialogue
- Quartet
- Dialogue
- Duet
- Dialogue
- Mavra's song
- Coda
Synopsis from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.