Hymn of Love

A masterpiece of late musical romanticism, lyrical opera Iolanta is one of the last Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s works, written in 1892 and based on the play King René’s Daughter by Henrik Hertz.
Poetic spirituality, nobility and purity of feelings, touching sincerity made the fairy tale about a girl, who was born blind and recovered her sight thanks to love, one of the most harmonious and bright Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s works. This opera embodies a life-affirming faith in victory of the bright beginning, in the spiritual strength of a person striving for truth and goodness. Tchaikovsky's opera is filled with symbols. The eternal darkness, where unsuspecting daughter of the king Rene lives serenely and calmly, is a symbol of mind blindness. Only love ignites in Iolanta's heart a passionate desire to see the world, gives birth to willingness to make sacrifices and courage to endure the torments worth her recovered sight. The composer wrote: ‘... the plot, where I will prove to the whole world that lovers should stay alive in opera finales, has been found and that this is the simple truth.’

The opera was premiered in December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. Since then, this work has been constantly performed in different theatres around the world. And today critics write that music in Iolanta is excellent, the action is concise, the story is fantastic and it ends happily. The production has been staged many times at the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus, the current production was made in 2004.
On 31 October, the People's Artist of Belarus, laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Belarus Anastasia Moskvina will perform the title role in the production. Iolanta is one of the favorite roles of the Belarusian singer, she brilliantly performs it both on the Belarusian stage and on other venues, in particular, she sang it on the stage of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall at the gala closing of the 8th RNO Grand Festival conducted by Mikhail Pletnev. In the summer of 2018 Anastasia sang the role of Iolanta with the same orchestra in Tokyo. Maestro Pletnev himself insisted on the participation of the Belarusian singer in this project: ‘We need Anastasia! When she sings Iolanta, I cry...’.
The leading masters of the Belarusian stage will also sing this evening: Alexander Krasnodubsky as Robert, Dmitry Shabetya as Vaudemont, Yury Bolotko as Alméric, Dmitry Kapilov as Bertrand, Marina Aksentsova as Marta, Elena Sinyavskaya as Brigitta, Kriskentia Stasenko as Laura. Aleh Lessoun will conduct.