Janos Gereben wrote:

>Originally announced as "The Maid of Orleans," the current nomenclature
>is "Joan of Arc," SF Opera making a mid-stream marketing change (to what
>end, I don't see);

Some may recall in the Prokofiev thread here not that long ago that Mr.
Schwartz wondered whether there were more than two important Chaikovsky
operas and it is this one and Charodeika of which I spoke highly.
Charodeika is variously rendered as "The Enchantress" or "The Sorceress".
As for Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans, she is both.  OK, "Maid of Orleans"
is Chaikovsky's title in Russian but maybe we have arrived at a time in
cultural history where that "title" will not bring up Joan of Arc to a
lot of persons.  More dumbing of the audience???

Yoel