On Sergei Prokofiev’s birthday, I’ve got a love for…
I’ve also got a newspaper article due.
Ever wonder about the rest of the opera? I thought the production at the link below was the same as the one I caught in Philadelphia. However, as I remember it, the Philly production was not quite so dark. Turns out, that one was conceived by Alessandro Talevi. The one at the link was designed by the Brothers Quay – who also have a Philadelphia connection, as graduates of the late, lamented University of the Arts. Both productions employ an English translation by David Lloyd-Jones, who conducts the performance here – but if you still can’t understand it, use the closed captioning.
Prokofiev wrote his own libretto, in French, after a play by Carlo Gozzi. The work was given its first performance in Chicago, with the composer conducting, in 1921. None of the critics liked it, except Ben Hecht, a newspaper man who also wrote novels and was soon to became one of Hollywood’s most-valuable screenwriters. When he completed a last-minute, uncredited rewrite of “Gone with the Wind,” he was dubbed the “Shakespeare of Hollywood,” which the cynical Hecht dismissed as proof of just bad Hollywood movies really are.
It didn’t stop him from accepting assignments, though. It’s true that Ben liked “Oranges,” but what he really loved was green.
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Played in transcription by Jascha Heifetz
And Emil Gilels