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Boston.com

Music Review

An opera unfairly obscure, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Iolanta’ shines

By Jeffrey Gantz

 |  Globe Correspondent  

  May 22, 2012

Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” may be the most popular ballet of all time, but when it premiered on a double bill at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, in December 1892, it was the audience’s second choice. The favorite was his opera “Iolanta,” a 90-minute, one-act work about a blind princess. It has since become as undeservedly obscure as “The Nutcracker” is deservedly famous, so it was a pleasure to see it Sunday as part of the Second International Rachmaninoff Russian Music Festival.

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