Kochno wrote the libretto of Stravinsky's Mavra (1921), the Fâcheux (1924), La Chatte (1927) and of the ballet The Prodigal Son (1929).
The opera has been characterised as both an homage to Russian writers, and a satire of bourgeois manners and the Romeo and Juliet subgenre of romance.
Mavra |
Opera debut was in Carmen at the Helikon Opera in Moscow, and he became its resident conductor from 2004-2007, conducting such works as Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Shostakovich), Dialogue des Carmelites (Poulenc), The Tale of a Real Man (Prokofiev), Kaschei the Immortal (Rimsky-Korsakov), Siberia (Giordano) and Mavra (Stravinsky).