22
June’16
Wednesday 19:00
S. Prokofiev
Alexander Nevsky cantata, Ivan the Terrible film music
With projection of excerpts from Eisenstein’s films Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible
Dedicated to the 125th anniversary of Sergey Prokofiev's birth (1891–1953)
The collaboration of two artists of genius, Sergey Prokofiev and Sergey Eisenstein, began in 1928 and, despite the difficult time, it was crowned with two masterpiece films: Alexander Nevsky/and /Ivan Grozny. This artistic collaboration was based on the two masters’ boundless mutual trust. Prokofiev saw that the renowned director was ”a very subtle musician”, while Eisenstein was amazed by Prokofiev’s ability to catch the visual impression at once and to convey it in music. That’s how the visual and sound counterpoint was created in the two films.
Alexander Nevsky (1938) depicts Russia’s victory over the Teutonic knights in the 13thcentury. The success of the opera prompted Prokofiev to create a cantata of the same name. The Alexander Nevsky music exemplifies the best features of Prokofiev’s artistic creativity – his ability to create heroic images and soulful lyrics scenes. The center of both the cantata and the film is the spectacular scene of the Battle on the Ice.
The Ivan Grozny trilogy was filmed during the Second World War (1941–46). Eisenstein got the Stalin Prize for the first part of his film, but the second part was banned by Stalin and released only in 1958; the production of the third part was stopped. The main idea of Ivan Grozny, the idea of tragic requital a ruler gets for the crimes committed during his fight for power, was categorically denounced. The film was saved neither by the actors’ fabulous work, nor by the innovative visual solution (one scene of this black-and-white film was made in colour), nor by Prokofiev’s music.
The music in some parts of Ivan Grozny is of operatic nature. Along with this, adaptations of Russian liturgical hymns and their original versions are featured prominently in the picture.
The Novaya Opera Theatre tries to reconstruct this unique unity of musical and cinematographic images created by Prokofiev and Eisenstein.