"A Garden like Paradise" - the Sacred Space in Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's "Iolanta"
The article is dedicated to the musical characterization of the scene of “Iolanta”,i.e. “a Paradise-like garden”. Analyzing the scenes 1 to 3, we reveal the multilayered symbolic potential of those musical images which form the space of action in the opera. The analysis of the intertextual and genre components of the music is aimed at disclosing semantically important elements which transform the scene characteristics into a symbolism of the sacred space, the latter being turned into an important content element of the religious and spiritual conception of the opera. We also envisage the role of the bucolic elements in the dramatic characteristics and within the “field of meaning” of the last opera.