Prokofiev's Soviet Operas

Offers a critical and contextual study of the last four operas of Prokofiev, the leading opera composer in Stalin's Soviet Union.

Nathan Seinen (Author)

9781107460799, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 July 2021

269 pages
24.9 x 16.7 x 1.5 cm, 0.48 kg

'… Nathan Seinen sheds new light on Sergei Prokof´ev's long career as an opera composer, focusing on the four works composed in the Soviet Union … the analysis abounds in felicitous and often original insights.' P. R. Bullock, The Slavonic and East European Review

Prokofiev considered himself to be primarily a composer of opera, and his return to Russia in the mid-1930s was partially motivated by the goal to renew his activity in this genre. His Soviet career coincided with the height of the Stalin era, when official interest and involvement in opera increased, leading to demands for nationalism and heroism to be represented on the stage to promote the Soviet Union and the Stalinist regime. Drawing on a wealth of primary source materials and engaging with recent scholarship in Slavonic studies, this book investigates encounters between Prokofiev's late operas and the aesthetics of socialist realism, contemporary culture (including literature, film, and theatre), political ideology, and the obstacles of bureaucratic interventions and historical events. This contextual approach is interwoven with critical interpretations of the operas in their original versions, providing a new account of their stylistic and formal features and connections to operatic traditions.

Introduction
1. Semyon Kotko and the melodrama of high Stalinism
2. Buffered by Buffa: Betrothal in a Monastery
3. Kutuzov's victory, Prokofiev's defeat: the revisions of War and Peace
4. The Story of a Real Man and late Stalinist subjectivity
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD], Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Opera [AVGC9], 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6]