War and Peace

Opera by SERGEI PROKOFIEV, begun in 1941 and given its first complete stage production in Leningrad, 1948. Prokofiev did not specify the number of acts and emphasized that the production should be announced as being in 13 scenes.

Originally, Prokofiev planned to have the opera presented in two parts on two consecutive evenings, but eventually he compressed it to fit a single evening. The cast of characters numbers 72 singing and acting dramatis personae. The score attempts with considerable success to embrace the epic breadth of Leo Tolstoy's great novel from which the LIBRETTO was extracted by Prokofiev and his second wife, Myra Mendelson. The work went through more or less continuous revision until 1952.

The last version of the opera opens with a choral epigraph, summarizing the significance of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. Interlaced with military events are the destinies of the Rostov family and the dramatic story of Pierre Bezuhov. The concluding words of the victorious Field Marshal Kutuzov, "Russia is saved," were unquestionably intended to echo the recent Russian experience in fighting off another invasion, that of Hitler.

The musical style is profoundly Russian in spirit, but there are no literal quotations from folk songs. The melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic realization is recognizably that of Prokofiev's own.