Sergey Prokofiev Research Paper

The music of Sergey Prokofiev is known all over the world. Even amongst the musically uneducated, his music is recognised today more than ever, heard frequently in radio broadcasts, television adverts and sitcoms. His less known works are also becoming increasingly popular, with many of his ballets and operas getting played around the world. However, it is interesting that it is only in the past 10 years or so that his music has became more prevalent. Prokofiev often had to deal with harsh criticism and even bafflement when his musical works were first performed, specifically when he travelled to the west. Nevertheless, Prokofiev was an audacious pioneer and battled to get his music played. He became increasingly more popular as his career advanced, with his arrival in Europe, sparking partnerships with Les Ballet Russes. His return to Soviet Russia in 1936 is a move in Prokofiev’s life that is pivotal in the shift of his musical language. He struggled to write in the same style as he did abroad with the government criticising his ‘formalist’ approach. Although
Scythian Suite is probably the most extreme of his modernist way of writing, but this opera still showed many characteristics of this style. Prokofiev was a huge lover of operas, stemming from his love of them as a child. The Gambler was another Opera of his, written in Russia before he left and later revised it in 1927. After the extreme success of his Love for Three Oranges, Prokofiev believed The Gambler would be his operatic manifesto. He wanted to change the way people thought about Opera, with his contemporaries having tedious views on it – saying it was out-dated. It premiered in Brussels in 1929, however it has only been reproduced a handful of times, most recently in 2010 by Covent Garden. A review of this most recent production from the Telegraph Newspaper