TCHAIKOVSKY : THE MAID OF ORLEANS

Radio New Zealand Concert Network
Sunday 6th of September 2015, 6 - 9 pm

TCHAIKOVSKY: The Maid of Orleans (Orleanskaya deva)
an opera in four acts and six scenes
King Charles VII.............. Oleg Dolgov
Archbishop....................... Stanislav Trofimov
Dunois.............................. Igor Golovatenko
Thibaut d'Arc................... Petr Migunov
Raymond.......................... Arseniy Yakolev
Bertrand........................... Otar Kunchulia
Soldier.............................. Vladimir Krasov
Joan of Arc....................... Anna Smirnova
Agnès Sorel...................... Irina Churilova
Angel................................ Anastasia Shchegoleva
Bolshoi Theatre Chorus & Orch/Tugan Sokhiev
(recorded in the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow)

INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS

Here is Pyotr Ilyich's version of the life and death of Jeanne d'Arc (based on a play by Friedrich Schiller, as many operas are: William Tell, Don Carlos,  I Masnadieri). 
   Joan, the virgin warrior, falls in love with a Burgundian knight named Lionel; he should have been slain by her in battle, but when she saw the beautiful face he was hiding under his visor she saved him for her own (it is Tristan and Isolde again).
   She also saves Mother France from the English, who have no right to be there (maybe they could lay claim to Saxony, they being Anglo-Saxons, or even the whole of Germany, but their invasion of France is a gross intrusion). Anyway, when the Englanders catch Lionel and Joan naughtily embracing in a forest, they put him to the sword and her to the stake. So it ends with an immolation scene (shades of Götterdåmmerung); and, even though she has been too friendly with Lionel, there is room for her in Heaven, and her soul ascends thither.
   This is the opera that was to make Tchaikovsky world-famous, or so he thought, and it was the last opera that soprano Mirella Freni preformed in.
   First staged in Saint Petersburg in 1881, it was in the French style, with a ballet in Act 2. The Russian libretto was written by the composer himself, emulating Wagner by creating the words and the music himself.