The image of femme fatale in Sergei Prokofiev’s opera of the 1910s – 1920s

The comprehensive analysis of Sergei Prokofiev’s operas “Maddalena”, “The Gambler”, “The Fiery Angel” reveals the peculiarities of personification of the image of the protagonist as femme fatale (Maddalena, Polina, Renata). Despite heightened interest to this topic, this article is first to view the listed operas from such perspective, which defines the scientific novelty. The fact that the libretto of these works was created by the composer himself can be considered as testimony that S. Prokofiev deeply intertwines with the psychology and personality traits of his heroes. The composer depict “femme fatal” a specific type of personality that combines self-worth and spiritual pursuit, desire to manipulate others and natural talent, no sense of guilt, and realization of self in another person. The use of comparative-historical, musical-culturological, and theoretical-analytical methods allow tracing correlation between the opera plot and their life context of creation, finding differences and commonalities in the means of expressing the image of femme fatal, and indicating the evolution and universality of the composer’s way of thinking on the early stage of creation. Attention is given to the synthesis of the principles of symbolist, romantic, realistic and expressionist musical drama, which S. Prokofiev uses in the opera under review.

Sergei Prokofiev. Relatives

Обнародованные несколько лет тому назад сведения об арестах близких родственников Прокофьева и о полученных ими тюремных сроках открыли много нового в биографии и личности композитора. Так, стало очевидно, что он был прекрасно осведомлен о массовых репрессиях и жестокой политической цензуре в СССР, когда принимал решение вернуться на родину. Композитор должен был разработать особые авторские стратегии, маневрировать между факторами художественными и требованиями конъюнктуры. Представленные в статье письма шире знакомят с родными композитора; так, они проливают свет на жизнь в первые годы революции семьи Катениных, выводят на сцену действия одну из родственниц Прокофьевых, жившую в Германии, - Марию Рейн. В ряду самых пронзительных документов прокофьевского эпистолярия - письмо тетушки, Екатерины Григорьевны Раевской, которая сообщает об аресте дочери. Обогащают прокофьевское подполье записки композитора из Франции в финансовый отдел Большого театра и ГАТОБ (ныне Мариинский театр) с напоминаниями о необходимости отправить деньги его родственникам в СССР. Композитор в течение многих лет материально поддерживал три семьи своих репрессированных или попавших в жестокую нужду родных. Публикуемая здесь записка - только одна из очень большого количества таких напоминаний. The information about the arrests and jail sentences of Prokofiev's close relatives has been promulgated some years ago, and it revealed many new things about the composer's biography and personality. That is, it became clear, that he was fully aware of mass repressions and harsh political censorship in the USSR at the time he was deciding to return to the motherland. The composer had to shape his own personal strategy to maneuver between artistic values and the circumstances demand. The letters presented in the article introduce in greater detail the composer's relatives. So, they shed light upon the life of the Katenins family during the Revolution first years; they bring into view one relative living in Germany-Maria Rein. One of the most vibrant items of Prokofiev's correspondence is the letter from his aunt, Ekaterina Grigorievna Raevsky, who reported about her daughter being arrested. Prokofiev's quiet correspondence is enriched by his notes from France to the Bolshoi Theater finance department and to the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (St. Petersburg), reminding them to send money to his relatives in the USSR. For many years Prokofiev supported three families of relatives, who were purged or in need. The note published here is just one of many such reminders.

A arte pianística de Barbara Nissman

Barbara Nissman é uma pianista norte-americana conhecida por suas gravações de Alberto Ginastera e Sergei Prokofiev. O compositor argentino dedicou a ela a última obra que escreveu, sua Sonata n. 3. Em 1989, ela realizou a primeira gravação integral das Sonatas para Piano de Prokofiev. É autora do livro Bartók and the piano: A performer´s view, além de uma extensa discografia e de DVDs que combinam performance pianística e conferências educativas sobre compositores e suas obras. Atua intensamente em palestras e master classes. Sua formação ocorreu da graduação ao doutorado na Universidade de Michigan, sob orientação do pianista Gyorgy Sandor, discípulo de Béla Bartók.

Post Scriptum. A Few More Composers’ Names

In the previous lectures, which made up the cycle “Classics of Russian Music of the 20th Century”, the works of Sergei Rachmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, Georgy Sviridov, Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke were examined. Let us supplement this panorama with two final lectures: the first is intended to extend the range of composers’ names, the second will be devoted to an overview of 20th century music with an outlet into the universal space. As it is well-known, since the time of Peter the Great, who established St. Petersburg, two capitals coexisted in Russia, each of which possessed its own face and style, among other things, in the creation of music. By the end of the 19th century, two compositional schools had developed: the St. Petersburg school, the core of which was the “Mighty Handful”, and the Moscow school, headed by Piotr Tchaikovsky. During the 20th century, these schools continued their fruitful interaction. Among the names presented in the main sections of my lectures, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Shostakovich, Sviridov began their activities in St. Petersburg- Petrograd-Leningrad, and later they became Muscovites (except for Stravinsky, who lived abroad from the early 1910s). In the second half of the 20th century, the leaders of the musical process in Russia were the Moscow composers Rodion Shchedrin and Alfred Schnittke, along with whom many other names can be mentioned, including Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Vladimir Martynov. Representatives of the Leningrad school continued to make a significant contribution to the treasury of Russian music. The following short overviews of the works of Sergei Slonimsky and Valery Gavrilin will testify to this. In addition to the two capitals, composers from a number of other cities in Russia, primarily, those with conservatories, have worked tirelessly in the field of the art of music, which has significantly expanded the scale of the panorama of the musical art in our country — the creative heritage of Elena Gokhman is cited as a characteristic example.

Piano Concertos for the Left Hand by Ravel and Prokofiev: Two Answers to One Order

Пианист Пауль Витгенштейн, желая расширить и обновить свой концертный репертуар, внес в XX веке существенный вклад в фортепианную литературу для левой руки. В 1929–1930 годах он заказывает фортепианный концерт сначала Морису Равелю, а затем Сергею Прокофьеву. Это оказалось возможным благодаря наследству, полученному пианистом после смерти отца — сталелитейного магната Карла Витгенштейна. Если Равелю удалось, хоть и не полностью, удовлетворить потребности заказчика, то Прокофьеву было вовсе отказано в исполнении его музыки. Одной из главных причин неудачи Прокофьева можно считать творческий кризис конца зарубежного периода, когда композитор находился в поисках нового музыкального языка — «новой простоты». В статье прослеживается и сравнивается судьба этих произведений; устанавливаются причины сравнительной невостребованности концерта Прокофьева исполнителями; анализируется композиция, фортепианная фактура и техника, оркестровка. Освещены биографические факты из жизни Пауля Витгенштейна, а также непростые отношения между заказчиком и композиторами. In the twentieth century, the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein made a significant contribution to piano literature for the left hand, which was due to his wish to broaden and update his concert repertoire. In 1929–1930 he ordered a left-handed piano concerto first to Maurice Ravel and then to Sergei Prokofiev. It was possible through the inheritance that Wittgenstein received after the death of his father, the steel magnate Karl Wittgenstein. While Ravel was able to meet the client’s needs, though not completely, Prokofiev was completely denied the performance of his music. One of the main reasons for Prokofiev’s failure might be the creative crisis of the end of the foreign period, when the composer was in search of a new musical language — “the new simplicity”. The article traces and compares the destiny of these piano concertos, specifying the reasons for the relative lack of demand for Prokofiev’s left-handed concerto on behalf of performers. The article also analyzes music, piano texture and technique, form, orchestration of the lefthanded concertos. Special attention is paid to biographical facts from Paul Wittgenstein’s life, as well as uneasy relationship between the client and the composers.

Prokofiev, Soviet Influence, and the Music World in Stalinist Central Europe

In the aftermath of World War II, the Red Army as a symbol of power was supported in many other arenas so as to counteract the rival influence of the United States on Central Europe. The Soviet Union brought new urgency to these efforts from 1948, with music—and culture more broadly—providing a case for Russia’s attractiveness and superiority with respect to the West. This chapter discusses the nature and scope of Soviet influence in the Central European music world through the examples of East Germany and Poland, and through the prism of the music and persona of Sergei Prokofiev. After his return to the USSR in 1936, Prokofiev, along with Shostakovich, became associated with the very definition of what made music Soviet and thus worthy of emulation. And even more than Shostakovich, Prokofiev and his music functioned as powerful but malleable symbols that could be appropriated by all Soviet actors for their own ends.

From Film Score to Art Music and Back

Sergei Prokofiev was one of a few composers who worked equally successfully in the fields of film music and art music. His scores for Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible are as significant for the history of film music as are his operas and ballets for musical theater. He approached film projects with the same creative rigor as his stage and symphonic works. And so we must think of his film scores not as a separate enterprise but, rather, as one of the various theatrical and dramatic genres at which he tried his hand. While the operatic features of his music for Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible have become widely recognized, Prokofiev’s other film scores can also be placed in a broader context of the composer’s output. The cross-connections between genres can be traced at different levels, from common themes and literary ideas and similar stylistic evolution, to shared compositional techniques and borrowings of musical material from one work to another.