Schedule 2008
WEEKEND ONE
From East to West
AUGUST 8–10, 2008
According to those who knew him best, Prokofiev led an impulsive, impetuous life in the moment. Smitten with the technological advances of the modern age, he took full advantage of high-speed communication and intercontinental travel. In 1918, after completing the rigorous program of studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he departed Revolutionary Russia for the United States. After a two-year stay, he left for France, where, like most émigré artists of the period, he made Paris his home. During these hectic years, he composed three ballets and three operas, fulfilled recording contracts, and played recitals of tempestuous music. Scores were stored in suitcases, scenarios and librettos drafted on hotel letterhead. The transience tired him, but he prided himself as an optimistic, progressive person of action. In 1936, Prokofiev left France, an often nettlesome haven for foreigners, to take up permanent residence in Russia, an altogether transformed nation.
WEEKEND TWO
The Faustian Pact
AUGUST 15–17, 2008
After his return to Russia, Prokofiev soon found himself trapped, unable after 1939 to travel abroad and unable to compose in the manner he desired. Though valued by the Stalinist regime and supported by its institutions, he suffered correction and censorship, the result being a gradual sapping of his creative energies. Prokofiev revised and re-revised his late ballets and operas in order to appease cultural officials but, more often than not, his labors went to waste. Following his official denunciation in 1948, jittery concert and theater managers pulled his works from the repertoire. Physical illness cast a pall on Prokofiev's last years. Housebound, he turned inward, fulfilling modest commissions, many of them works on the theme of youth.
WEEKEND THREE
Prokofiev in America and Russia
OCTOBER 24–25, 2008
RELATED EVENT
The Bard Music Festival at the 92nd Street Y
NOVEMBER 23, 2008
- 11 am Symposium The Legacy of the Silver Age: From Mysticism to Modernism
- 3 pm Concert Prokofiev: Teachers, Inspirations, and Contemporaries
- For further information, www.92y.org.