War and Peace

  

War and Peace is often described as Prokofiev’s most sweeping opera ever. Based on Tolstoy’s monumental novel, spanning decades and thousands of miles, this production is the culmination of a two year project to complete Prokofiev’s uncensored score for this world premiere. Prokofiev began writing War and Peace in the months leading up to World War II which gave it contemporary relevance and political backing – and in its first form was completed in the spring of 1942. 

   

It took him nearly ten years to complete the work as it was processed through the Soviet censoring system. The initial version failed to find approval with the Soviet authorities, however, and the opera was subjected to continual revision in the eleven years until Prokofiev’s death in 1953. 

    

By this time it had grown to 13 scenes, lasting about four hours. It has been performed in many edited versions since then, but the original has remained amongst the composer’s manuscripts in Moscow until now.   This version has been produced by Dr Rita McAllister, renowned Prokofiev expert and former Director of Music at the Academy.

   

Note:

       

No musical material has had to be invented for the reconstruction; the sections discarded in the revision process have been orchestrated, as far as possible in keeping with Prokofiev’s distinctive style.  The outcome reveals a work much closer to the ideals of Tolstoy, with greater emphasis on the personal and intimate and less focus on the national and tableauesque.

   

   

I began working on Prokofiev’s operas for my PhD at the University of Cambridge in the late 60s – when there was very little interest in these works either side East/West divide. I was lucky enough to have access to almost all of the manuscripts of the operas, in this country and in Moscow. I spent several months I Moscow in 1968, mainly working in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, where almost all of the material for War and Peace was, and still is. I continued researching on Prokofiev for several years thereafter, but eventually dropped active research for other career pursuits.

  

With the Rostov project, the opportunity arose to do something that wouldn’t be possible without this kind of collaboration, and the idea of reconstructing the original version of War and Peace occurred to me. Reconstructing the notes of the original (1941/2) from the manuscripts sources was not too difficult, but the orchestration of the discarded sections (about 450 bars) would have to be done. Apart from my almost lifelong knowledge of Prokofiev’s music I am also a composer – so after some sleepless nights, I decided to do it myself. It will be a world première, presenting not only music by Prokofiev that has never been heard, but his original, very different concept of Tolstoy’s novel.

   

Dr McAllister’s full article about this project can be read here

  

Extracts from an interview with Dr Rita McAllister can be viewed here