Mavra & La rondine (IOA / YOF)

‘Perhaps, like the swallow, you will fly across the sea to a land full of light, full of dreams, towards the sun, towards Love,’ predicts the poet Prunier to Magda, a former courtesan who longs for a great, true love. That swallow, or ‘la rondine’, gave its name to a forgotten gem by Giacomo Puccini – often referred to as his La traviata. Even though Magda finds ‘the one’ in Ruggero, her past stands in the way of her building a safe nest.

Singers from the International Opera Academy and the talented musicians of Youth Orchestra Flanders illuminate love in all its facets. In sharp contrast to Magda’s romantic dream of love stands the pragmatism of the village girl Parasja, who in Stravinsky’s comic one-act opera Mavra smuggles her lover, disguised as the new cook, into the home of her elderly, widowed mother.

Director Inne Goris, who previously explored youthful infatuation in Ophelia (2021), forges these two forgotten operas into a surprising, semi-staged production in which Ravel’s La Valse also makes an appearance. Both folksy and sophisticated, and imbued with a wealth of dance rhythms.