Mavra

For other uses, see Mavra (disambiguation).
Mavra
Comic opera by Igor Stravinsky
Sketch of a costume by Léon Bakst
LibrettistBoris Kochno
LanguageRussian
Based onThe Little House in Kolomna
by Aleksandr Pushkin
Premiere
18 May 1922 (1922-05-18)
Théâtre de l'Opéra Paris

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.[1] The dedication on the score is to the memory of Pushkin, Glinka and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.[2][3]

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.[4][2][5] The opera was a failure at the premiere, partly because the large space of the Paris Opéra overwhelmed the small scale of the opera.[3] One critic, Émile Vuillermoz, so enraged Stravinsky that he cut the review out and pasted it onto his manuscript copy.[6][7]

Stravinsky himself thought very highly of this composition, saying once that "Mavra seems to me the best thing I've done".[8] Erik Satie praised the work after its premiere.[9] The composer reacted with hostility to people who criticized it in later years.[10]

The opera was given its United States premiere by the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia on December 28, 1934 with Maria Kurenko as Parasha and Alexander Smallens conducting. The Santa Fe Opera mounted Mavra in 1962.

The first aria of the work has been arranged for cello and piano, and recorded with Mstislav Rostropovich under the title "Russian Song".

  1. ^ Truman, Philip, "An Aspect of Stravinsky's Russianism: Ritual" (1992). Revue belge de Musicologie/Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap, 46: pp. 225–246.
  2. ^ a b 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.
  3. ^ a b Robinson, Harlow (1989). "The Case of the Three Russians: Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich". The Opera Quarterly. 6 (3): 59–75. doi:10.1093/oq/6.3.59.
  4. ^ Tamara Levitz, "Stravinsky and His World". Available at https://vdoc.pub/documents/stravinsky-and-his-world-1aoas6o7uueg
  5. ^ Elizabeth Forbes, "A soprano's memories" (review of Slobdoskaya by Maurice Leonard). The Musical Times , 120(1640, p. 835 (1979).
  6. ^ Vuillermoz's review in Excelsior (Paris), 12 June 1922, trans. Tamara Levitz, in Levitz, Stravinsky and His World, p. 28. Retrieved 15 February 2017
  7. ^ Levitz, p. 55, footnote 36. Retrieved 15 February 2017
  8. ^ Stuart Campbell , "The 'Mavras' of Pushkin, Kochno and Stravinsky". Music & Letters, 58(3), pp. 304–317 (July 1977).
  9. ^ Peter Dickinson, Review of The Writings of Erik Satie (translated and edited by Nigel Wilkins). Music & Letters, 63(3/4), pp. 293–295 (July–October 1982).
  10. ^ Stephen Walsh, Review of Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works Through "Mavra" by Richard Taruskin. Music & Letters, 78(3), pp. 450–455 (August 1997).