{"id":58670,"date":"2018-09-16T15:58:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T13:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2018\/09\/16\/war-and-peace-review-ferocity-and-passion-in-prokofievs-rare-opera\/"},"modified":"2018-09-16T15:58:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T13:58:09","slug":"war-and-peace-review-ferocity-and-passion-in-prokofievs-rare-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=58670","title":{"rendered":"War and Peace review \u2013\u00a0ferocity and passion in Prokofiev&#039;s rare opera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffWelsh National Opera\u2019s welcome revival of this seldom-seen Tolstoy adaptation is sung with distinction amid chilling present-day echoesSergei Prokofiev had long planned making Tolstoy\u2019s epic novel into an opera. Two defining factors spurred him into feverish composition: love for the young Mira Mendelson, who would become his second wife, and Hitler\u2019s invasion of &nbsp;Russia. As&nbsp;Welsh National Opera\u2019s new staging opens, Tolstoy\u2019s handwriting is seen \u2013 the&nbsp;Russian script&nbsp;being&nbsp;laboriously formed, white against a black background \u2013 as peasants and soldiers congregate. Their patriotic chorus erupts with the ferocity of an aural bombardment. As they sing, Tolstoy himself&nbsp;is seated among them, recording his nation\u2019s resistance to Napoleon\u2019s invasion. Pierre Bezhukov, wonderfully portrayed by tenor&nbsp;Mark Le Brocq, is essentially Tolstoy\u2019s reflection of himself . The final image will be of Bezhukov, quill in hand, passing sheet after sheet to his beloved Natasha. They are both Tolstoy and his Sonya, and Prokofiev and Mira. The opera\u2019s sequence of lyric-dramatic scenes \u2013 peace in the first half, war in the second \u2013 reduces Tolstoy\u2019s rich tapestry to bare threads while making huge demands on any company, and has generally gained more detractors than admirers. Yet director David Pountney\u2019s boldness and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Hanus\u2019s impassioned marshalling of WNO\u2019s musical forces should help tip opinion in Prokofiev\u2019s favour in a production that uses a score based on Katya Ermolaeva and Rita McAllister\u2019s new critical edition of the composer\u2019s original, together with later material. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2018\/sep\/16\/war-peace-review-welsh-national-opera-wno-wales-millennium-centre-cardiff-pountney\" target=\"_blank\">War and Peace review \u2013\u00a0ferocity and passion in Prokofiev&#039;s rare opera<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffWelsh National Opera\u2019s welcome revival of this seldom-seen Tolstoy adaptation is sung with distinction amid chilling present-day echoesSergei Prokofiev had long planned making Tolstoy\u2019s epic novel into an opera. Two defining factors spurred him into feverish composition: love for the young Mira Mendelson, who would become his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}