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Perséphone (Stravinsky)

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Librettist
  
André Gide

Composer
  
Igor Stravinsky

Based on
  
Persephone myth

Lyricist
  
André Gide

Perséphone (Stravinsky) ringcdandlpcomvogelweithphotogrande115057989jpg

Premiere
  
30 April 1934 (1934-04-30) Opéra, Paris

Similar
  
The Flood, Oedipus rex, Mavra, The Nightingale, Renard

Perséphone (Persephone) is a musical work (mélodrame) for speaker, solo singers, chorus, dancers and orchestra with music by Igor Stravinsky and a libretto by André Gide.

Contents

Perséphone (Stravinsky) Igor Stravinsky Persephone

It was first performed under the direction of the composer at the Opéra in Paris, on 30 April 1934 in a double bill with the ballet Diane de Poitiers by Jacques Ibert. The premiere was staged by the ballet company of Ida Rubinstein, with Rubinstein herself dancing and speaking the part of Persephone and the tenor René Maison singing Eumolphe.

Perséphone (Stravinsky) BBC Radio 3 Afternoon on 3 Thursday Opera Matinee Stravinsky

It was also performed at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires under Stravinsky himself in 1934, and then in Rio de Janeiro. Victoria Ocampo, an important intellectual from Argentina, was present at the premier in Buenos Aires. It was reprised at the Colón in 1995 with China Zorrilla under Pedro Ignacio Calderón.

Perséphone (Stravinsky) BBC Radio 3 Afternoon on 3 Thursday Opera Matinee Stravinsky

Other choreographed versions have included those of George Balanchine, Kurt Jooss (1955), Frederick Ashton (1961), and Pina Bausch (1965). (Martha Graham's "Persephone," ironically, is accompanied by Stravinsky's Symphony in C.)

Perséphone (Stravinsky) Igor Stravinsky Persephone rev 1949

It was recorded by Stravinsky himself with Vera Zorina and also under André Cluytens (with Nicolai Gedda, 1955, Paris), Sir Andrew Davis (with Paul Groves, London) and Michael Tilson Thomas (with Stuart Neill, 1999, San Francisco).

Perséphone (Stravinsky) STRAVINSKY Persephone Pristine PACO061 DC Classical Music

Roles

  • Eumolphe, tenor René Maison
  • Perséphone, ballerina Ida Rubinstein
  • Demetra-Dometer, ballerina Krakowska
  • Mercure, dancer Anatole Viltzak
  • Pluton, dancer
  • Démophoon, dancer
  • Synopsis

    The melodrama tells the story of the Greek goddess Persephone, in three parts:

    Perséphone (Stravinsky) Igor Stravinsky Persephone rev 1949

  • 1. L'enlèvement de Perséphone (The Abduction of Persephone);
  • 2. Perséphone aux Enfers (Persephone in the Underworld);
  • 3. Renaissance de Perséphone (Rebirth of Persephone).
  • References

    Perséphone (Stravinsky) Wikipedia