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What Is Your Favorite Prokofiev Ballet?


Nick Parker
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Cinderella Dances With the Knights on a Cold Stone Flower  

18 members have voted

  1. 1. What Is Your Favorite Prokofiev Ballet?

    • Romeo And Juliet (premiered 1938)
      15
    • CInderella (premiered 1945)
      2
    • The Tale of the Stone Flower (premiered 1954)
      1
    • What films did Prokofiev score?
      0


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I love Romeo and Juliet.

Regarding the film score option....my favorite in that category would be ALEXANDER NEVSKY! I listen to that all of the time...

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Prokofiev wrote stuff for girls flitting about in tutus?

I'll stick with my manly Zimmer power anthems, thank you very much.

Prokofiev wrote ballet music so that he could meet chicks. Zimmer sits alone in his studio with his samples. He has no where to go with his manhood.

Alex

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Awesome thread. I have been lucky enough to see both Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella over the past year and while I LOVE the music from Romeo and Juliet, I actually was more captivated by the staging of Cinderella. The National Ballet of Canada did a fine job of it and the two dancers who protrayed the evil step sisters were a riot! Musically, nothing touches R&J though. Truly inspired writing.

Dave

Prokofiev wrote stuff for girls flitting about in tutus?

I'll stick with my manly Zimmer power anthems, thank you very much.

Clearly you haven't heard the opening for his Third Symphony. It was scare the shit out of Zimmer with its powerful bi-tonal brass chords on top of those demonic string figures.

Also,I would recommend The Crusaders in Pskov from Alexander Nevsky. Once again, this is harsh stuff.

In fact, there's a whole catalog of Prokofiev works that would decimate most film composers' output for pure aggression. Prokofiev was the Bruce Lee of the classical music world.

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Oh yes. The action music from Ivan the Terrible and part of early section from Rome and Juliet (not mention the Revolution movement from the October Cantata), is as agressive as classical music gets. That is trully the "art of noise"

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Sorry, I don't listen to classical music. It's elitist, like arugula and Dijon mustard.

Then why the f^^& are you posting in this thread which is clearly about a CLASSICAL composer???

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Poor Alan...too often is his lovely wit confused as foolish sincerity....

And Dave, is your profile name named after the Prokofiev opera?

Yes indeed. I guess I don't frequent this forum as often as I should. I thought his post was an earnest one. My apologies.

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Poor Alan...too often is his lovely wit confused as foolish sincerity....

And Dave, is your profile name named after the Prokofiev opera?

Yes indeed. I guess I don't frequent this forum as often as I should. I thought his post was an earnest one. My apologies.

You are a Bela Bartok fan? I thought it is Bartok in your atavar.

I know all the ballets. Still I like Romeo and Julia the most. Prokofiev was a brilliant orchestrator, up there with Ravel, Willams and Bernstein.

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Poor Alan...too often is his lovely wit confused as foolish sincerity....

And Dave, is your profile name named after the Prokofiev opera?

Yes indeed. I guess I don't frequent this forum as often as I should. I thought his post was an earnest one. My apologies.

You are a Bela Bartok fan? I thought it is Bartok in your atavar.

I know all the ballets. Still I like Romeo and Julia the most. Prokofiev was a brilliant orchestrator, up there with Ravel, Willams and Bernstein.

Yes, I have been enjoying his Concerto for Orchestra and Miraculous Mandarin especially. Would love to see the latter staged.

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  • 3 months later...

How in the heck did I miss THIS thread? Oh, right ... was busy being best man at a wedding at the time. :)

Anyway ... I'm proud to be the lone advocate for THE STONE FLOWER as the best of Prokofiev's ballets. ROMEO & JULIET fully deserves its accolades ... CINDERELLA is justifiably beloved ... but for me, STONE FLOWER is tops. I think it's too often dismissed as somehow not "advanced" enough, or representing Prokofiev in decline. Bah, says I! Written late in his career, this is certainly mature Prokofiev as opposed to Prkofiev the enfant terrible. If one were to make a John Williams analogy, this would be like comparing RAIDERS to A.I. ... sort of. At any rate, STONE FLOWER features gorgeous melody after gorgeous melody, all developed with the grace and precision of a true master. I adore it. The lengthy "Ural Rhapsody" is an unqualified masterpiece -- a tour de force on its own terms, but even better in the context of the complete ballet.

There are three recordings of the complete STONE FLOWER that I am aware of. The 1968 version recorded by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra under Gennadi Rozhdestvensky is a superb interpretation, if you can find it, although the sound quality leaves something to be desired. My personal favorite recording, though, is the late-90s version by the Radio Philharmonie Hannover des NDR under Michail Jurowski. It's a stunner, in terms of both the quality of the recording and the interpretation. Alas, I cannot recommend the 2003 recording by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda ... I just didn't think he had a real feel for the material. Stick with the Jurowski. Jurowski, incidentally, also conducted my favorite recording of the complete CINDERELLA, and has recorded many of Prokofiev's minor ballets (not in this poll, but still worthy), and also Khachaturian's SPARTACUS.

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Not a ballet, but everyone should get the CD of Prokoviev's first violin concerto played by Max Vengerov, even when you don't like classical music.

51T84MG2F6L._SS400_.jpg

Alex

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