Ippolit Shpazhinsky

This tragedy depicts a father and son in love with the same woman, who is an enchantress. She keeps them both in subjection with her charms, butthe mother and wife of the victims kills the seducer. However, both the father and the son are severely affected by her actions, which they cannot forgive.

Russia, 1775. Count Orlov writes a letter to Empress Catherine II the Great in which he denounces Princess Tarakanova as a traitor and pretender to the throne.

The Enchantress was Nastasia, aka Kuma, a beautiful young widow who ran an inn and allowed herself to be loved, that's all. The machinations of jealous envious people and hypocrites were woven around her. The viceroy of the Moscow sovereign, Prince Kurlyatev, falls in love with Nastasia. Nastasia rejects the advances of the old voluptuary, and the young Prince, sent by his mother to kill the estranged woman, himself becomes a victim of her charms. Then the Princess, insanely jealous, decides to commit murder... Staged by Gorky Opera and Ballet Theatre in Moscow in 1984

Originally set in the 15th century, Tchaikovsky's "The Enchantress" is updated to the present day in this innovative production. The charismatic, emancipated Nastasya, who rejects the advances of the devious Mamïrov, duly faces the implacable forces of traditional values in a society riven by divisions between liberal freedoms and religious orthodoxies. The tragic outcome engulfs everyone...