Mariinka presents the first opera by Rodion Shchedrin, which premiered in 1961. Shchedrin dedicated the work to Maya Plisetskaya. The libretto is based on a story by Sergey Antonov. The events unfold in an ordinary village after World War II. The men died at the front, so the population consists only of women and young boys. In his youth, Shchedrin himself saw such villages. The main character, Varvara, a mature woman, falls madly in love with a young man named Volodya. Her entire being longs for love, and her maternal tenderness remains unfulfilled. The lovers meet in secret, as Volodya has a fiancée named Natasha, who is his peer. The rural love triangle erupts into conflict, and the ending is sad and leaves no hope. The premiere was performed at the Bolshoi Theatre in the winter of 1961, provoking deep disapproval from cultural officials. As Shchedrin himself said, the "openly Freudian motifs" of the opera starkly contrasted with the performances of the Soviet repertoire, with their marches, fluttering flags, and other attributes of the era. The opera was shown three more times, and then gradually removed from the schedule.