Video streamed event and on demand: IolantaNew production

A young blind princess, sheltered from the world by her father, lives hidden away from the world in a magical garden. Should she be told that she is blind? Could love help her to see the world differently?

In 1890, the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg commissioned Tchaikovsky to write a two-act ballet, Nucracker; Iolanta is the one-act opera he wrote to complete the evening’s double-bill. Human drama always inspired Tchaikovsky, and lolanta has drama and a message about the healing power of love. Iolanta  herself - another of his young, vulnerable heroines - captured his creative heart and inspired his best music in the opera.  Streamed live on OperaVision, Opéra national de Bordeaux’s new production is directed by Stéphane Braunschweig who uses light to create a poetic journey of initiation. ‘As Iolanta ends with a gaze turned towards the heavens and a song of glory to the divine light,’ writes Stéphane Braunschweig, ‘I see a sort of holy communion or a desire for reconciliation with the world. In my opinion, this is what gives this opera its depth, which, beneath its appearance of simplicity, conceals the dazzling beauty of a masterpiece.’