SYNOPSIS
The action is set in the Ukraine in the early 18th century.
Act I
Scene 1
Kochubei’s house and garden.
The
girls come to Maria, Kochubei’s daughter, and tell her to come and have her
beloved’s fortune told. She refuses: her father has a guest, the hetman Mazepa.
Her heart if filled with deep love for him.
A childhood friend, Andrei the
Cossack, knowing of Maria’s fateful passion, declares his unrequited love for
her and begs her to leave Mazepa. Maria, understanding the full recklessness of
her feelings, nonetheless is powerless to resist them. Kochubei enters the
garden, with his wife Lyubov, Mazepa and his other guests.
Kochubei’s
servants amuse Mazepa with singing and dancing.
Mazepa asks Kochubei for
Maria’s hand. Kochubei and Lyubov are enraged at the old hetman’s
proposal – he is Maria’s godfather. The hetman turns to Maria and offers
her a choice between him and her parents. She, after tortuous hesitation, gives
her hand to Mazepa. The hetman carries Maria away.
Scene 2
A room in Kochubei’s house.
Maria’s
mother mourns the loss of her daughter, who has now left her father’s home. She
urges her husband to take revenge on Mazepa. Kochubei proposes his plan of
vengeance: he has found out about the links between the hetman and Sweden’s King
Charles XII, and of Mazepa’s proposed betrayal of Peter I, and he resolves to
present the captured hetman to the Russian Emperor.
Andrei is ready to
deliver a denunciation before the Emperor. Kochubei’s acquaintances are filled
with hatred for the hetman Mazepa.
Act II
Scene 3
A cellar in Mazepa’s palace in
Belotserkovsk.
The mendacious hetman, having been warned of his
denunciation before Peter I, has succeeded in slandering Kochubei to the
Emperor. Bound in chains and having been tortured, both Iskra and Kochubei await
interrogation.
Orlik enters – he is the hetman’s faithful retainer. He
demands that Kochubei give up the treasure he allegedly has buried in the
village of Dikanka.
Kochubei has nothing: his honour has been despoiled by
Mazepa, and his beloved daughter Maria taken from him by the very same
Mazepa.
Kochubei desires one thing only – revenge.
Scene 4
A room in Mazepa’s palace.
The hetman
is receiving in secret the ambassadors of the Swedish King. Orlik enters, and
receives the order to execute Kochubei.
Maria appears. In a talk with Mazepa,
she upbraids him for his coldness towards her. Jealous suspicions torment her
soul. Unwillingly, the hetman must lay bare before his daughter the true reason
for his coldness, and he reveals the secret plan against the Russian Tsar.
Mazepa wants to know whom Maria would choose: her father or her husband, if she
was forced to make that choice? In disarray, she speaks of the boundless nature
of her love, she does not understand the question of a choice between father and
husband. Mazepa leaves.
Maria’s mother appears, having secretly gained
access to the palace; she tells her daughter of the failed plot against the
hetman, and is stunned that her daughter does not know about the death that
awaits her father. Maria and Lyubov hurry to stop the execution.
Scene 5
The road leading to Kochubei’s place of
execution.
The people await the appearance of the sentenced men, while a
drunken Cossack sings and dances in the crowd. The executioner appears, followed
by Mazepa and Orlik, then Kochubei and his friend Iskra are brought in. The
sentenced men bid farewell to one another, the people and life, and they mount
the scaffold.
Maria and Lyubov run in. But they are too late. The sentence
has been executed.
Act III
Scene 6
The Battle of Poltava – symphonic
scene.
Scene 7
Kochubei’s former home and garden.
The height of the battle, Russian warriors and pursuing the Swedes;
Andre is among them. He is stopped by familiar places, and he recalls times of
happiness gone by. Mazepa appears with Orlik. They have fled after the loss of
the Swedes at Poltava. Andrei, recognising Mazepa, attacks him with a sword, but
Mazepa forestalls him and wounds him fatally.
Maria appears, having lost her
mind; she recognises nothing around her. Drowning in grief, the daughter laments
her murdered father.
Orlik and Mazepa hide. Not recognising the dying
Andrei, Maria lulls him with a cradle song.
Running time: 4 hours 05 minutes
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