Word: prokofievs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Play Prokofiev's "Classical Symphony" over five times, if you feel like...
...Habit. A modest man, Menotti would be the last to claim preeminence as an operatic composer at work in a world which includes Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky. But even his relations in Italy might yet have to admit that he is the most successful at work...
...Puccini. Bar for bar, he bears scant resemblance, but Menotti's tender and romantic passages in particular come to the ear with something of Puccini's melodramatic appeal. Actually, Menotti says that Mussorgsky has been more his model; he has obviously learned from both Debussy and Prokofiev, too. He seldom strays far from traditional tonality, although he often uses sharp or strong dissonance for effect...
...story of Turandot comes from the same shop as Prokofiev's delightful The Love for Three Oranges, but it is a far less juicy piece of fruit. Puccini's librettists, like Prokofiev, took their story from an 18th Century "fable," i.e., play, of Count Carlo Gozzi, who in turn had been inspired by a Chinese-Persian legend about a beautiful but petulant princess of ancient Cathay. The princess announces she will marry any man of noble blood who can answer three riddles; if he misses an answer, he loses his head...
Three Oranges is certainly the broadest burlesque ever set on an opera stage, and the richest fun ever made out of grand opera's robustious airs. Composer Prokofiev's score makes it a work of art as well. Witty, clean and colorful, it fits the Three Oranges like a second skin...