Word: prokofievs
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Igor Stravinsky and Serge Prokofiev are two great composers of our century who are difficult to label. Other 20th century composers of note include the Americans Gershwin, Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, Copland, and Leonard Bernstein, all of whom have had some limited success entering the standard repertoire...
This is in large measure Sendak's doing. The Connecticut-based author and illustrator, who also designed a sparkling production of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges that premiered at the New York City Opera last month, has brilliantly re-created his fable for the stage, giving it a disarming, storybook two-dimensionality. There is the wolf-suited Max (Soprano Karen Beardsley), a youthful holy terror who hangs his Teddy bear and decapitates his toy soldiers. There is Max's snug bedroom, where he is commanded to repair without supper after his mother (Mezzo Mary King) loses patience with...
...minutes. Atonal passages mingle freely with tonal ones as the theme is atomized and then reconstructed in reverse; the modern orchestrational device of flutter-tonguing for flutes and brass is complemented by traditionally virtuosic writing for the solo violinist. Gubaidulina, 53, also evokes her Russian predecessors Stravinsky and Prokofiev, most strikingly in a passage of glissandi string harmonics that recalls The Firebird. By Western standards, Offertorium may be tame, but given the governmental restrictions on the stylistic range of Soviet music, it shows Gubaidulina to be a fresh, challenging voice in her country...
...paths of ballet companies are apparently no less star-crossed than those of lovers. Despite the fairly plentiful literature of full-length works available, both A.B.T. and Joffrey are staging expensive, opulent productions & based on Shakespeare's tragedy and set to Sergei Prokofiev's marvelous score. The Joffrey version premiered in Washington last Dec. 12, and A.B.T.'s followed it into the Kennedy Center last week...
Both versions are strongly influenced by the 1940 Kirov production by Leonid Lavrovsky, who worked closely with Prokofiev. This is the composer's best ballet music: rich, copiously dramatic, with a sunny spiritual radiance in the love scenes. Cranko set it first for the ballet of La Scala in 1958 and four years later for his own fledgling troupe, the Stuttgart Ballet. He was able to show off his inexperienced dancers without exposing their deficiencies with anything too intricate. That approach well suits the Joffrey youngsters, whose average...