THE MAID OF ORLEANS Tchaikovsky — Deutsche Oper am Rhein

In the grips of the Hundred Years War against England, the French find themselves in a difficult situation: Paris has fallen, Orléans is besieged, and their king, Charles VII, appears more interested in his affairs of the heart than those of the state. In this hopeless situation, the farmer’s daughter Joan announces that God has commissioned her to liberate Orléans. The ‘Maid of Orléans’ may be victorious in battle but loses her heart in passion to a Burgundian knight, Lionel. The flames consume a woman torn between love and her divine mission. Inspired by Schiller’s tragedy, Tchaikovsky wrote The Maid of Orleans about the famous French heroine between 1878 and 1879. While Schiller sees her as an innocent, momentarily tempted by love for Lionel, Tchaikovsky permits Joan to indulge fully in her love and then die in religious ecstasy. Here is a historical heroine with something of the Tatyana from Eugene Onegin about her. Tchaikovsky’s score is filled with the same passion, with orches