Mazeppa at Komische Oper Berlin

A passionate love doomed to fail in politically unstable times. In Mazeppa, Tchaikovsky shows us with great emotional intensity the destructive power of a love that tries to assert itself against all external obstacles and that, in doing so, shatters. This is the first time ever that Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece can be experienced as a new production in Berlin.

The love between the Ukrainian hetman Mazeppa and the considerably younger Maria, the daughter of a land-owner, is great and transgresses every convention. Mazeppa and Maria refuse to forsake each other, and elope together. Yet Mazeppa’s passion, once the nourishing source of his love for Maria, is transformed into unrelenting cruelty against Maria’s father, who tries to take revenge for the humiliation of the “kidnapped” daughter. Maria is forced to witness the murder of her own father. What began for her as a fairytale has revealed itself to be a nightmare, which ends with first her spirit breaking, then her mind.

Although Mazeppa, the Ukrainian national hero, is a real historical figure, Tchaikovsky is here less interested in history than in the love between an unusual couple, a love which is undone by the circumstances of the period and by societal norms. This opera does not end in a tragic yet liberating joint death of the lovers. In the shattering final scene, unique in the canon of opera, Maria, mad and abandoned by her lover, sings a lullaby to her dead childhood friend Andrei to send him to sleep. Mellow woodwind instruments, plain choral pieces in the Russian folk tradition, and gentle vocal lines are starkly contrasted with marshal-sounding brass and percussive sections and dramatic song passages. The purely instrumental “The Battle of Poltavar” showcases the true variety of Tchaikovsky’s musical language.

Ivo van Hove is the Head of the Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the Netherlands’ greatest theatre ensemble. He has worked at such opera houses as the Netherlands Opera, the Vlaamse Opera, and the Théâtre de la Monnaie. Mazeppa will be his first production at a German opera house.