Name: Iolanta, op. 69
Start: 2012-01-14T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2012-01-29T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Teatro Real

Organization

Singer

Soprano

Ekaterina Scherbachenko

Iolanta

Veronika Dzhioeva

Bass

Dmitry Ulyanov

Rene

Baritone

Alexey Markov

Robert

Tenor

Pavel Černoch

Count Vaudemont

Dmytro Popov

Willard White

Ibn-Hakia

Vasily Efimov

Almeric

Pavel Kudinov

Bertrand

Conductor

Teodor Currentzis

Stage director

Peter Sellars

Set designer

George Tsypin

Costume designer

Martin Pakledinaz

Lighting designer

James F Ingalls

Chorus master

Andrés Máspero

Contralto

Ekaterina Semenchuk

Marta

Irina Churilova

Brigitta

Mezzo-soprano

Letitia Singleton

Laura

Helene Siebrits

Ana González

Teatro Real de Madrid

Others

Coro Intermezzo

Orchestra

Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid

Russian

Iolanta, op. 69 -  (Iolanta)

Madrid

Spain

Teatro Real

Iolanta by Piotr Tchaikovsky, from Teatro Real, Madrid, 2012. Directed by Peter Sellars, conductor Teodor Currentzis. Starring Ekaterina Scherbachenko, Iolanta; Dmitry Ulianov, King René; Alexey Markov, Robert; Pavel Cernoch, Vaudémont; Willard White, Ibn-Hakia; Vasily Efimov, Alméric; Pavel Kudinov, Bertrand.Performed in Russian.

From the Teatro Real de Madrid
IOLANTA | by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(with English subtitles - activable in the player)

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Libretto: Modest Tchaikovsky
Based on King René's Daughter by Henrik Hertz

Iolanta, a mature composition by Tchaikovsky, was premiered in 1892 and it contains all aspects of the composer’s mastery: beautiful melodies, clear structure and genuine passion in its many varieties.

Iolanta: Ekaterina Scherbachenko
Vaudémont: Pavel Cernoch
King René: Dmitry Ulianov
Ibn-Hakia: Willard White
Robert: Alexey Markov
Bertrand: Pavel Kudinov
Alméric: Vasily Efimov
Marta: Ekaterina Semenchuk
Brigitta: Irina Churilova
Laura: Letitia Singleton

Choir and Orchestra of the Teatro Real
(Coro Intermezzo and Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid)

Stage and Television Director: Peter Sellars
Musical Director: Teodor Currentzis

1 Opening 0.45
2 Introduction 3.13
3 Moy ptenchik, Iolanta . . . 5.22
4 Otchego eto prezhde ne znala . . . 2.55
5 Polno, ne nado, rodnaya . . . 2.20
6 Brigitta, eto ty? 1.59
7 Spi, pust’ angely krylami . . . 4.11
8 Vkhod otkryt vam . . . 6.48
9 Chto skazhet on? 4.20
10 Tvoyë litso besstrastno . . . 7.10
11 Ne toropis’ . . . 5.28
12 Net! Chary lask krasy . . . 4.04
13 Moy Bog! 6.30
14 Vy mne predstali kak viden’ye . . . 6.39
15 Tvoyë molchan’ye neponyatno . . . 10.53
16 Iolanta! Iolanta! Iolanta! 7.47
17 Net, nazovi mucheniya . . . 5.02
18 Gotfrid, ya vyruchat’ tebya yavilsya . . . 4.47
19 Gde ya? 2.15
20 Cherubs’ Hymn 7.15
21 Blagoy, velikiy, neizmennyy . . . 4.11
22 Curtain calls 2.03

Experience an intriguing take on the ancient Greek myth of Persephone in Peter Sellars’ superb 2012 production at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Perséphone is a ballet-melodrama in three acts composed by Stravinsky in 1934, and based on the text of a play of the same name written by André Gide.

Stravinsky was fifty years old when he premiered Perséphone in April 1934 at the Opéra de Paris. The work was commissioned by Ida Rubinstein, a patron of the arts and celebrated dancer who by the 1930s had become an icon of Parisian life. The composer collaborated with the French writer André Gide, who took a theater project that, as he described it, had been “asleep for 20 years”, and was originally inspired by Homer’s poem on the goddess Demeter. The partnership between the two artists proved difficult, mostly because Stravinsky wanted to take more liberty than Gide in his incorporation of the original text’s prosody.

Peter Sellars’ production premiered in January 2012 at the Teatro Real in Madrid. He combines in one show Stravinsky’s Perséphone with Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, placing the two works in dialogue with one another, and exploiting their common themes of light and darkness. Indeed, the female protagonists’ destinies seem to intersect: Iolanta, a young blind girl, is brought into the light through love, while Perséphone, driven by her love of humanity, journeys into the kingdom of shadows.

Peter Sellars, Teodor Currentzis, Ekaterina Scherbachenko and Dominique Blanc tell us about the work carried out until reaching the premiere of this production: An extraordinary double programme with two works which “represent an ideal of beauty, poetry and hope”. 

 

Iolanta and Perséphone tell stories of transformation; two dramas laden with symbolism which take a path from light to darkness and back again, where there is always a shadow of one’s self behind each person. Peter Sellars tells the story using a single setting with very intense, abstract visual images where everything changes, as in Russian symbolist drama.

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