Mazeppa (Russian: Мазепа) is a 1884 opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, based on Poltava, a poem by Alexander Pushkin.
Mazeppa, the elderly powerful hetman of Ukraine, asks for his young goddaughter Maria's hand in marriage. Unusually for such a situation, Maria loves him deeply in return and prefers to elope with him when her father Kochubey refuses to allow the match.
Kochubey and his wife plan revenge. Kochubey has figured out Mazeppa is secretly in league with the Swedish king, plotting against Tsar Peter. However, an attempt to draw the Tsar's attention to the fact ends in disaster: Peter trusts Mazeppa absolutely, so Kochubey and his subordinate and friend Iskra are tried for treason themselves and executed on the hetman's orders.
Maria learns about the impending execution but she can't make it in time to stop it. Brokenhearted, she grows insane. Mazeppa and the Swedish forces are defeated in the battle of Poltava, and Mazeppa is forced to flee — but not before hearing, from a delirious Maria, that she thought he was a different man.
Tropes present in the opera:
- Adaptational Explanation Extrication: Maria grows jealous when she hears Mazeppa drinking to Dulskaya's health. In the poem, Mazeppa explains Princess Dulskaya is one of his allies. Here, she is never mentioned again after Maria brings up her name.
- All for Nothing:
- Mazeppa's plots that included the execution of Kochubey and Iskra end in failure. He ends up a powerless fugitive, with only one henchman accompanying him, and learns that his cruelty has led to the insanity of the girl he loves.
- Andrey tries to call to Maria to break her delirium, but it's hopeless, and he dies, listening to her mad ravings and knowing she is doomed to die soon, alone at the deserted estate, unless help arrives.
- Ascended Extra: Andrey, Maria's Unlucky Childhood Friend, isn't exactly a major character, but he still gets more development than in the original poem where his counterpart doesn't even have a name.
- Betty and Veronica: Maria is pursued by her sweet, noble childhood friend Andrey and her elderly godfather Mazeppa who is secretly plotting against the Tsar. She only has eyes for the latter; even in the opera's final scene when she is completely delirious, she dreams of the man she thought Mazeppa was before he executed her father, while when she sees Andrey, she mistakes him for a child.
- Downer Ending: Unlike in Pushkin's poem, there is no mention of Tsar Peter pardoning the relatives of Kochubey and Iskra, begging their forgiveness, and showering them with honors, and the glorious victory at Poltava happens offstage, so the named characters end up either dead or at best facing a bleak future.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Mazeppa is an ambitious traitor with a Hair-Trigger Temper, but he genuinely loves Maria. He is extremely conflicted about ordering her father's execution… but still goes through with it, after which Maria's love for him meets its end.
- Fatal Flaw: Mazeppa's extremely ambitious nature is what leads to his own downfall and that of everyone else in the opera. He used to be a Living Legend hetman whom the Tsar trusted absolutely, but he wants a crown for himself, hence his betrayal and his ensuing crushing defeat. Moreover, to cement his power he makes the decision to kill Kochubey and Iskra, which fully destroys his relationship with Maria, who was otherwise ready to stand by him through thick and thin, and brings Maria to madness.
- May–December Romance: Mazeppa is very old and Maria very young (like in Pushkin's poem, the exact age difference is never given, but their historical counterparts had a difference of forty-nine years). This, however, never becomes a problem in itself: even in her madness, Maria wistfully talks about the kind and loving man with "a moustache whiter than snow" that she wanted Mazeppa to be.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Downplayed. In the aftermath of the battle of Poltava, Andrey attacks Mazeppa; however, by that point, he has other reasons to do so besides their rivalry over Maria (namely the fact that Mazeppa is a traitor to the Tsar and that he killed Kochubey). In the ensuing fight, Mazeppa mortally wounds him, but he is only defending himself and doesn't even realize it was Andrey until after the latter falls down.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Armed with only his own vague deductions, Kochubey decides to bring Mazeppa to justice for treason. Not only does it fail, but it also leads to Kochubey and Iskra's execution and to Maria's resulting Sanity Slippage.
- Parental Marriage Veto: Kochubey and his wife are really, really against Mazeppa's relationship with their daughter. Her elopement with him is what prompts Kochubey to try to reveal Mazeppa's treachery.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Maria bitterly tells Mazeppa that she took him for a different man, a handsome, kind and loving one.Maria: His moustache is whiter than snow, and yours is stained with blood!
- Villainous Incest: Downplayed. Mazeppa isn't Maria's blood relative, but he is her godfather, and such relationships are heavily frowned upon in the Orthodox Church's tradition, viewed as a form of incest. It may be possible to get a permission to marry from the archbishop (as Mazeppa is ready to do), but the popular opinion of such a couple would still be pretty low. For Kochubey, it's another reason for him to hate Mazeppa.
- We Used to Be Friends: Kochubey and Mazeppa used to be close friends, with Mazeppa almost opening up to Kochubey about his secret plots and becoming godfather to Kochubey's daughter. But then Mazeppa decided to elope with said daughter, and the friendship ended.
- Wife Husbandry: Kochubey firmly believes that Mazeppa groomed his daughter. Since Mazeppa is her godfather and was Kochubey's close friend, he definitely had all the opportunities for it, but we are never shown the truth, since at the start of the opera he and Maria are already planning to marry.
