Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt (‘None but the lonely heart’), probably the best known of Tchaikovsky’s songs, lends its name to an intimate theatrical evening in which Christof Loy has combined songs or ‘romances’ and instrumental music to create a chamber opera of striking beauty and intensity. Tchaikovsky’s songs cover a stylistic diversity unsurpassed by other Russian composers, often setting enigmatic texts in which the unsaid and unsayable create expressive tensions and encapsulate true human emotions. Given a sumptuous period setting, these qualities create a unique drama in which suppressed love is confronted with longed for moments of passion, and sadness over broken relationships leads to withdrawal and loneliness.