''Mavra'' () is a one-act

comic opera Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...

composed by

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

, and one of the earliest works of Stravinsky's neo-classical period. The

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

, by Boris Kochno, is based on

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

's ''The Little House in Kolomna''. Mavra is about 25 minutes long, and features two

aria In music, an aria (, ; : , ; ''arias'' in common usage; diminutive form: arietta, ; : ariette; in English simply air (music), air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrument (music), instrumental or orchestral accompan ...

s, 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 The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

manners and the ''

Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...

'' 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 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popula ...

.This information is from the Boosey & Hawkes 1947 reprint (copyright assigned to Boosey & Hawkes) of the 1925 Édition Russe de Musique vocal score of this work (based on a copy of this vocal score in the library of the State University of New York @ Fredonia.) B&H plate 16304. ''Mavra'' premiered at the Théatre national de l'Opéra in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

on 3 June 1922, under the auspices of

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario an ...

, 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. The opera was a failure at the premiere, partly because the large space of the Paris Opéra overwhelmed the small scale of the opera. One critic, Émile Vuillermoz, so enraged Stravinsky that he cut the review out and pasted it onto his manuscript copy. Stravinsky himself thought very highly of this composition, saying once that "''Mavra'' seems to me the best thing I've done".

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...

praised the work after its premiere. The composer reacted with hostility to people who criticized it in later years. The opera was given its United States premiere by the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company at the Academy of Music,

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

on December 28, 1934 with Maria Kurenko as Parasha and Alexander Smallens conducting. The

Santa Fe Opera Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby (conductor), John Crosby, oversaw the building of the f ...

mounted ''Mavra'' in 1962. The first aria of the work has been arranged for cello and piano, and recorded with

Mstislav Rostropovich Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian Cello, cellist and conducting, conductor. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works, which enl ...

under the title "Russian Song".

Synopsis

:Place:

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n 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.

Roles

Numbers

#Overture #Parasha's song #Hussar's gypsy song #Dialogue #The mother's song #Dialogue #Duet #Dialogue #Quartet #Dialogue #Duet #Dialogue #Mavra's song #Coda

Recordings

* Columbia 72609: Susan Belinck, Mary Simmons, Patricia Rideout, Stanley Kolk; CBC Symphony Orchestra; Igor Stravinsky, conductor * Decca: Joan Carlyle, Helen Watts, Monica Sinclair, Kenneth Macdonald; L' Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Ernest Ansermet, conductor * Chandos CHA 9488: Tatyana Kravtsova, Olga Korzhenskaya, Olga Markova-Mikhailenko, Alexei Martynov; Netherlands Wind Ensemble;

Thierry Fischer Thierry Fischer (born 28 September 1957) is a Swiss orchestra conductor and flutist. Early life and education Fischer was born in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Zambia) to Swiss parents. He studied flute with Aurèle Nicolet and bega ...

, conductor * BMC 118: Maria Fontosh, Ludmila Schemtschuk, Lili Paasikivi, Valerij Serkin; German Youth Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony; Péter Eötvös, conductorHecht, Rite of Spring; Mavra. ''American Record Guide''; Jan/Feb2007, Vol. 70 Issue 1, p175-176, 2p

References

External links