Iolanta, the daughter of Provençal King René, who has been blind from birth, lives in hiding in the Vosges mountains. Her father hopes that she will be cured by the famous physician Ibn-Hakia - only when she can see will Iolanta meet her fiancé Robert of Burgundy. But things turn out differently: Robert wants to break off the engagement because he loves another princess. His companion and friend Vaudemont, on the other hand, falls in love with Iolanta at first sight and she returns his love. Love becomes the key to treatment, the cure succeeds and Iolanta learns to see.
The suggestion for this material came from Tchaikovsky himself. In a conversation with the magazine Peterburgskaja Zizn' in November 1892, he explained: "About eight years ago, I received an issue of the [Moscow] magazine Russldj Vestnik [Russian Messenger, note] in which the drama play King Rene's Daughter by the Danish playwright Henrik Hertz was printed in the Russian translation by F. B. Miller. This material enchanted me with its poetry and originality as well as its wealth of lyrical moments. At the time, I promised myself that I would set it to music one day."
Premiere March 24, 2025
Further performances: March 27 and 31 and April 4 and 6, 2025
