Prokofiev: The love for three oranges

Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Sokhiev, Tugan, soliści

BAC 024

State of emergency in playing-card country: The heir to the throne is ill, suffers from hypochondria, cannot laugh. A great feast is organized, the merriment of which is supposed to cure the prince; all efforts remain in vain, however. The sorceress Fata Morgana appears as an uninvited guest, she falls in a scuffle, and her clumsiness provokes the prince to laugh so much that he is cured of his hypochondria. Incensed, the enchantress bewitches him to fall in love with three oranges and not to rest until he has conquered them. The oranges are with another evil sorceress who kills anyone who tries to get them. The tropical fruit finally turns out to be a prison for three beautiful princesses, the prince and the most beautiful fall in love with each other, overcome the last obstacles of the sorceress and head for a happy future. • Prokofieff wrote the opera after a fairy-tale comedy by the Venetian theatre poet Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) in 1919 while in American exile. After a world war that shook the European order and led to the upheavals of the revolution in Russia, Prokofieff wrote this fairy-tale opera, which presents nightmarish turmoil and yet, through the power of love, opens the way to a bright future. No great theatre à la Verdi, Wagner or Puccini, just "an amusing work", as the composer himself put it.

DVD

13.11.2007

3760115300248