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CHAN 10058 Front.qxd 23/4/07 4:41 pm Page 1 CHAN 10058(2) CHANDOS CHAN 10058 BOOK.qxd 23/4/07 4:33 pm Page 2 Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev (1891–1953) The Tale of the Stone Flower, Op. 118 A ballet in four acts and nine scenes; scenario by Mira Mendelson and Leonid Lavrovsky from the book The Malachite Box by Pavel Bazhov COMPACT DISC ONE Prologue Lebrecht Collection Lebrecht 1 1 The Mistress of the Copper Mountain 4:14 2 2 Danilo and his work 2:38 Act I Scene 1 3 3 Danilo in search of the stone flower 2:17 4 4 Danilo meets his fellow villagers 2:06 5 5 Scene and duet of Katerina and Danilo 5:14 6 6 Interlude I. Severyan and the workers 3:13 Scene 2 7 7 Round dance 2:43 8 8 Katerina bids farewell to her friends 2:14 9 9 Maiden’s dance 4:21 10 10 Danilo’s dance 1:25 11 11 Unmarried men’s dance 1:34 Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev 12 12 Severyan’s arrival 3:30 13 13 Altercation over the malachite vase 4:45 14 14 Scene of Katerina and Danilo 2:21 15 15 Danilo’s thoughts 3:03 3 CHAN 10058 BOOK.qxd 23/4/07 4:33 pm Page 4 Scene 3 Scene 7 16 16 Danilo enticed away by the Mistress of the Copper 11 32 Gypsy dance 3:14 Mountain 5:22 12 33 Severyan’s dance 1:45 13 34 Solo of the gypsy girl and Coda 3:54 Act II 14 35 Katerina’s appearance and Severyan’s rage 2:06 Scene 4 15 36 The appearance of the Mistress and Scene of 17 17 The Mistress shows Danilo the treasures of the earth 2:04 Severyan transfixed 1:04 18 18 Duet of the Mistress and Danilo (first temptation) 5:00 16 37 Severyan follows the Mistress 2:05 19 19 Scene and Waltz of the Diamonds (second temptation) 5:24 17 38 Severyan’s death 2:01 20 20 Dance of the Russian precious stones (third temptation) 4:01 21 21 Waltz 4:13 Act IV TT 72:39 Scene 8 18 39 Katerina sits by the fire and yearns for Danilo 1:42 COMPACT DISC TWO 19 40 Scene and Katerina’s dance with the skipping fire-spirit 3:06 1 22 Danilo’s monologue and the Mistress’s reply 1:56 20 41 Katerina follows the fire-spirit 1:33 2 23 The Mistress shows Danilo the stone flower 2:15 3 24 Severyan and the workers; the Mistress’s warning 3:02 Scene 9 21 42 Katerina’s dialogue with the Mistress 3:28 Scene 5 22 43 Danilo turned to stone 3:26 4 25 Scene and Katerina’s dance (thinking of Danilo) 3:46 23 44 The joy of Katerina and Danilo’s reunion (Adagio) 4:12 5 26 Severyan’s arrival 1:59 24 45 The Mistress presents gifts to Katerina and Danilo 3:07 6 27 ‘Where are you, sweet Danilo?’ 1:26 7 28 The appearance of the Mistress and Katerina’s joy 2:20 25 46 Epilogue 1:29 TT 75:40 Act III Scene 6 BBC Philharmonic 8 29 Ural Rhapsody 8:40 Yuri Torchinsky leader 9 30 Interlude II 7:03 Gianandrea Noseda 10 31 Russian dance 4:13 4 5 CHAN 10058 BOOK.qxd 23/4/07 4:33 pm Page 6 have been marking the spirit of the revolution, best-loved of all Juliets and Cinderellas, Galina Prokofiev: The Tale of the Stone Flower he had taken a boat trip down the river Kama Ulanova, as Katerina), Yuri Grigorovich’s 1957 to the foot of the Urals, and had described the Kirov choreography brought out ‘a hitherto scenery to his friend Myaskovsky as ‘wild, unsuspected psychological depth’; but then For anyone who believes in balletic progress, interested in composing a ballet to the theme virginal and exceptionally beautiful, with its Grigorovich’s choice of music, like his Prokofiev seems to have taken several of Pushkin’s ‘little tragedy’, The Stone Guest, red mountainous shores covered in dark re-ordering, cutting and replacing of entrechats backwards from the early shock- following the examples of Gluck, Mozart and Siberian pines’. More recently he had spent six Shostakovich’s score for The Golden Age, bore tactics of his first attempt to write a score for Dargomyzhsky in treating the legend of months there as a wartime evacuee in little relation to the original. Diaghilev, Ala and Lolly, to the full-length Don Juan and his meeting with the Molotov. It is easier to acknowledge the ballet’s national spectacle of his last ballet, The Tale Commendatore’s statue. But some time in Something of the magic of that region traditional roots in other fairytale sources. of the Stone Flower. It is certainly true that 1948 the idea was dropped, as Nestyev translates into his themes for the Mistress of There are echoes, in the plot, of Rimsky- despite a few anarchic flourishes in the 1920s, comments sparely, ‘because of Prokofiev’s the Copper Mountain, supernatural guardian Korsakov’s Sadko, the minstrel temporarily the quest for concise novelty of subject matter interest in writing a national ballet’. Reading of the stone flower which craftsman Danilo lured away from his faithful Lyubava by the which had so distinguished Diaghilev’s Ballets between the lines, it is not hard to see that seeks in the hope that it will unlock the means magic of the Sea-King’s daughter, and of the Russes during the company’s glorious two the interest was ‘encouraged’ by Zhdanov’s to create a malachite vase of unsurpassable Hans Christian Andersen scenario for decades had all but passed Soviet ballet by. In notorious trials against so-called formalism in beauty. In thrall to the Mistress in her rocky Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss, based on themes early 1934 Prokofiev observed, ‘a ballet for music that February. realm, Danilo is finally rescued by his true by Tchaikovsky (which led Prokofiev in 1928 the Bolshoi has to be done resplendently, with Yet the subject of The Stone Flower had love, Katerina. Both are rewarded by the to observe wryly to a colleague, ‘I’m very glad velvet costumes. Otherwise the public won’t some personal charm for the composer. The Mistress for their constancy while the you liked Stravinsky’s new ballet; I’ve always come.’ His imminent solution, Romeo and composite scenario by Prokofiev’s partner Mira obligatory villain, bailiff Severyan – the nearest said that Tchaikovsky was an excellent Juliet, stands alongside Tchaikovsky’s Mendelson and the choreographer Leonid thing the ballet furnishes to a ‘class enemy’ or composer.’). Stravinsky equated the fairy’s kiss Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty as an Lavrovsky amalgamated several of the folk- saboteur – is duly swallowed into the earth. A which marks his hero out for reclamation by inexhaustible fountain of invention. Cinderella, style tales in a book by the Ural writer Pavel laborious attempt has recently been made to the supernatural world with ‘the muse marking its sequel, was to be on a more modest scale; Bazhov; in this respect there were parallels equate Bazhov’s portrait of the bad bailiff Tchaikovsky at his birth’, and by the same but with The Tale of the Stone Flower – cast with Prokofiev’s first ballet to be accepted by with his critical attitude to Stalin’s despoliation token we might equate Danilo’s quest for the in a Prologue, four acts and nine scenes which Diaghilev, Chout, which had been drawn from of the Urals’ natural resources, and to claim stone flower with the artist’s search for range from village and fairground to mountain a rather more hard-hitting Perm folk-tale in back the ballet plot as a parable of something beyond the little world he knows; caverns – the scope is epic again. Alexander Afanasyev’s celebrated collection. environmental awareness. The same enthusiast but again this is to build expectations for a At first glance the theme is circumscribed Prokofiev knew the austere natural beauties of points out that in contrast to the highly score which is only fitfully the best of by the dark times in which the music was the Ural mountain region in which the story conventional first production of the ballet Prokofiev. composed. According to his Soviet biographer takes place from his youthful travels; in 1917, Prokofiev never lived to see (which opened at The waning of the melodic gift which was Israel Nestyev, Prokofiev had first been when according to later precepts he should the Bolshoi on 12 February 1954 starring the his own ‘fairy’s kiss’ could to a certain extent 6 7 CHAN 10058 BOOK.qxd 23/4/07 4:33 pm Page 8 be mitigated, as in the opera he composed at The Music This is where the first scene of Act Two local colour. The Ural Rhapsody (No. 29) – a the same time, The Story of a Real Man, with These, in effect, are the precious and not-so- takes place. A powerful pas de deux marries detachable showpiece along the lines of the borrowings from earlier works. It would be precious stones which Prokofiev will mine for the Mistress’s trumpeting insistence with Russian Overture Prokofiev composed in fatuous to claim that the reworkings in either the telling of his story, though The Stone Danilo’s doubts about the girl he has left 1936 – blends racy exoticism with reprises of case function as powerfully as the meaningful Flower also has more of the old-fashioned behind (No.