Sergei Prokofiev

* Scythian Suite, op. 20
* Alexander Nevsky, op. 78

Olga Borodina, mezzo-soprano; Kirov Orchestra & Chorus of the Mariinsky
Theatre, St. Petersburg/Valery Gergiev
Philips 289 473 600-2  TT: 59:33

Summary for the Busy Executive: A lost opportunity.

Prokofiev wrote several ballet scores for Diaghilev, none of which have
gained a hold in the standard ballet repertory.  However, they have had
fair careers as concert suites.  The Scythian Suite from 1915 began life
as the ballet Ala and Lolly of the previous year (which I've never heard
of being restaged in the past thirty years).  It owes a lot -- and pretty
obviously so -- to Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps.  Nevertheless,
it doesn't slavishly imitate.  One can find plenty of Prokofiev in it
as well.  Still, you can see why it hasn't won the hearts of many
listeners.  A kind of lush hot-house exoticism -- in my opinion, fairly
atypical of the composer -- clings to the work like a heavy perfume.  It
dates the work like crazy.  One seems to stare at a sepia photograph of
a New Orleans prostitute, circa 1910, in some campy, languorous pose.

Nevsky's, of course, a different story -- one of Prokofiev's most
popular works and a genuine Soviet hit.  Prokofiev wrote it for the
Eisenstein film.  The lustre of the film, heavily indebted to D.  W.
Griffith and to John Ford, has dimmed a bit (Alexander has all the depth
of a Schwarzenegger action hero), although the best sequences -- the
set-pieces, really, like the "Battle on the Ice" -- retain their original
vigor.  Prokofiev's music is certainly one of the finest things about
the film, and its support of the action has become a textbook example
for aspiring film composers.  The music itself remains powerful.

I have four performances of the work: the old Fritz Reiner/Rosalind
Elias on RCA; the Thomas Schippers/Lili Chookasian on CBS/Sony; the Andre
Previn/Christine Cairns on Telarc; and this one.  The Reiner, musically
exciting, is hampered by a lousy English translation.  The Previn doesn't
seem like much of anything -- unexpectedly bland, I'd say.  The Schippers
is, for my money, the one to beat, and Gergiev, although better than
Previn, doesn't really come close in this live recording.  There's a
perfunctory quality to most of it, as if Gergiev can't wait to get it
over with and on to something he actually enjoys.  Reiner and Schippers,
for example, raised the hairs on your head with the electrifying opening
phrases.  Gergiev beats time.  The players, however, are wonderful,
especially the chorus, vivid, powerful, and balanced in tone, with superb
diction and great drama.  And those Russian basses!  "The Battle on the
Ice" remains exciting, and Olga Borodina breaks your heart with her aria,
"The Field of the Dead." If only the rest of the performance had lived
up to these sequences and to the magnificent chorus.

Gergiev has flummoxed me.  His Prokofiev series generally wowed me,
especially the operas.  He's a great theater man, and Nevsky is nothing
if not drama.  I have no idea what happened here.  Perhaps he'll rerecord
the cantata when his attention is fully engaged.

Steve Schwartz