24.11.2017
Velikan returns
Sergei Prokofiev’s opera Velikan (The Giant) returns to the Mikhailovsky as part of our Backstage Story children’s subscription. On 10 December, our young theatregoers will have a chance to experience a work written by a future great composer at the age of nine.
Velikan was written in 1900, when the budding composer was only just starting to learn to play the piano and read music. Having watched performances of Faust and Prince Igor while on a trip to Moscow, young Prokofiev was so inspired that upon his return to his home village of Sontsovka in Ekaterinoslavsky province, he told his mother that he was going to write an opera of his own! He came up with a storyline and was soon showing off his musical ditties to his mother. To her surprise, they were all well-composed and even rather amusing. Incidentally, Mozart wrote his first operatic work at 11 years of age. The first performance of the first act of Velikan soon took place at the home of his relative Rayevsky, conducted by and featuring the composer himself. After that, Prokofiev’s parents helped him on the path to becoming a professional musician.
The composer would go on to describe his favourite work from his early years of composing in depth in his autobiography. As a result, although the archives contain only 12 sheets of music for the piece, we have managed to recreate and revive Velikan for a stage production. Sergei Sapozhnikov has updated and scored Prokofiev’s childhood composition, originally written for voice and piano. Velikan was first performed on the big stage at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, accompanied by our orchestra, back in 2010.
After the première Sapozhnikov wrote: „The Mikhailovsky Theatre has perfectly understood the importance of this work, not as an interesting anecdote about the childish antics of a nine-year-old genius, but as the first test of a baby eagle’s wings, the first flight of an eaglet who would go on to become the symbol and undoubted leading light of Russian and world music in the twentieth century.“
Velikan was written in 1900, when the budding composer was only just starting to learn to play the piano and read music. Having watched performances of Faust and Prince Igor while on a trip to Moscow, young Prokofiev was so inspired that upon his return to his home village of Sontsovka in Ekaterinoslavsky province, he told his mother that he was going to write an opera of his own! He came up with a storyline and was soon showing off his musical ditties to his mother. To her surprise, they were all well-composed and even rather amusing. Incidentally, Mozart wrote his first operatic work at 11 years of age. The first performance of the first act of Velikan soon took place at the home of his relative Rayevsky, conducted by and featuring the composer himself. After that, Prokofiev’s parents helped him on the path to becoming a professional musician.
The composer would go on to describe his favourite work from his early years of composing in depth in his autobiography. As a result, although the archives contain only 12 sheets of music for the piece, we have managed to recreate and revive Velikan for a stage production. Sergei Sapozhnikov has updated and scored Prokofiev’s childhood composition, originally written for voice and piano. Velikan was first performed on the big stage at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, accompanied by our orchestra, back in 2010.
After the première Sapozhnikov wrote: „The Mikhailovsky Theatre has perfectly understood the importance of this work, not as an interesting anecdote about the childish antics of a nine-year-old genius, but as the first test of a baby eagle’s wings, the first flight of an eaglet who would go on to become the symbol and undoubted leading light of Russian and world music in the twentieth century.“
