SERGEY PROKOFIEV Excerpts from Cinderella, Op. 107 Introduction [Suite 1 No

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SERGEY PROKOFIEV Excerpts from Cinderella, Op. 107 Introduction [Suite 1 No. 1] Pas de chat [The Cat's Dance] [Suite 1 No. 2] Quarrel [Suite 1 No. 3] Fairy Grandmother and Winter [Suite 1 No. 4] Mazurka [Suite 1 No. 5] Arrival to the Ball and the Grand Waltz [Suite 2 No. 5] Cinderella Goes to the Ball [Suite 1 No. 6] Cinderella's Waltz [Suite 1 No. 7]— Midnight [Suite 1 No. 8] Born: April 23, 1891, in Sontsovka, Ukraine Died: March 5, 1953, in Moscow Work composed: 1940–44 First performance: November 21, 1945, in Moscow

Among the hit movies of the current season is Cinderella. A critical success, it is far outpacing its competition at the box office a week after it opened, and it seems on its way to becoming the highest-grossing movie of the year. The film’s popularity is just the latest evidence of the enduring appeal of the Cinderella legend. The story of the lovely and kind but put-upon girl who wins the hand of a prince was popularized by Charles Perrault, the French author of fairytales, who published his version in 1697. The Grimm brothers offered a competing account in 1812, as have several other writers over the years. Cinderella also has engendered operas by Rossini (one of his most successful works after The Barber of Seville) and by Massenet; a Broadway-style musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein; and dozens of films, the most famous being the 1950 Disney animation. Finally, Cinderella has inspired several ballet scores, the most ambitious and successful being that of Sergey Prokofiev. Prokofiev had left his native Russia in 1918, shortly after the country’s epochal revolution, and spent most of the next two decades living in the West. He returned home in the mid-1930s and soon busied himself with film and theater projects. One of these came from the Kirov Theater, which in 1940 commissioned Prokofiev to write music to the Cinderella story. The composer finished two of the ballet’s three acts by June 1941, when Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union plunged the nation into crisis. Prokofiev now put Cinderella aside for three years. He returned to it and completed the score in 1944. The ballet’s first production took place not at the Kirov, as originally planned, but at the Bolshoi, in Moscow, in November 1945. Prokofiev subsequently extracted three concert suites from his full ballet score. The movements we hear during the second half of our program include the entire first suite and one excerpt from the second. We begin with music that introduces the ballet. Here Prokofiev establishes two themes associated with the title character. The first is mournful, as befits Cinderella’s sad lot at the start of the story. This gives way, however, to music expressing her dreams of happiness. The opening scene finds Cinderella at home, serving her stepmother and stepsisters, while the household cat scampers about. Our third excerpt begins with Cinderella’s wicked step-sisters are embroidering a shawl to wear to the palace ball, but they quarrel violently over which of them will wear it. Later, Cinderella is visited by her Fairy Godmother and four fairies who rule the seasons. Together, they transform Cinderella into an elegant beauty. Musical representations of the Winter Fairy and Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother compose the fourth piece we hear. The remainder of our excerpts presents, slightly out of order, events at the ball. Awaiting the arrival of the Prince, guests dance a Mazurka. Cinderella enters and soon dances a grand waltz with the Prince. (This music is from the second of Prokofiev’s three Cinderella suites. We then hear music for the magic carriage ride that takes Cinderella to the palace.) Cinderella dances alone, enchanting the Prince. But she has forgotten her Godmother’s admonition not to linger past midnight, and when chimes strike that hour, she abruptly flees. Our concert concludes at that suspenseful juncture.

What to Listen For Following a somber opening, the rippling harp figures accompany music of romantic dreaming. Cat's Dance makes prominent use of the clarinet, the instrument Prokofiev selected to “portray” the cat in his children’s story-with-music Peter and the Wolf. Cinderella’s entrance brings a return of her theme of romantic dreaming, as if to show that her reveries have now become reality.