Tchaikovsky’s disturbing but gripping Mazeppa at Grange Park

Tchaikovsky’s disturbing but gripping Mazeppa at Grange Park

Scenes of torture, execution and bleak rows of coffins may not be the cheeriest of hors d’oeuvres before your interval bubbly. This is Grange Park Opera’s new staging of Tchaikovsky’s rarely performed Mazeppa, where love and political ambition collide with fatal consequences. No chainsaw massacre here, as in David Alden’s presentation for English National Opera in 1984, but there’s still much to disturb with its graphic content. Key to the succe…