The House of Diaghilev. Music for us

Opera-tale in two acts

Libretto by Yulia Osminina, based on The Mistress of the Copper Mountain and The Malachite Casket from Pavel Bazhov’s collection of tales The Malachite Casket

The opera was first performed in Perm in 2012

Tanyusha is the most beautiful girl in the village, but her beauty is mysterious and sinister, like the precious stones in the malachite casket she received from her father, who vanished without a trace in the mines while searching for the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, according to rumour. When the landowner Turchaninov comes to court Tanyusha, she makes a proviso: she will marry him, but only after he shows her the malachite casket in the Empress’s palace.

The libretto is based on two of Pavel Bazhov’s tales from his famous collection, The Malachite Casket. During the last century, the magical stories about the powerful Mistress of the Copper Mountain and the prospector-stonemasons of the Urals provided rich material for filmmakers (Alexander Ptushko) and composers (Sergei Prokofiev and Kirill Molchanov), but in recent years, interest in them has waned.

Dmitry Batin has discovered a new the distinctive beauty and poetry of Bazhov’s tales. Director Olga Enns and Set Designer Galya Solodovnikova have staged «a frightening fairy-tale for family viewing», creating an exciting atmosphere on the border between two worlds: the everyday and the fantastic.

The production is staged with financial support from the Pearl of the Urals Foundation, and the companies IM-Light Perm and Festival-Plus