SERGEY PROKOFIEV

Excerpts from Cinderella, Op. 107

Introduction [Suite 1 No. 1]
Pas de chat [The Cat's Dance] [Suite 1 No. 2]
Quarrel [Suite 1 No. 3]
Fairy Grandmother and Winter [Suite 1 No. 4]
Mazurka [Suite 1 No. 5]
Arrival to the Ball and the Grand Waltz [Suite 2 No. 5]
Cinderella Goes to the Ball [Suite 1 No. 6]
Cinderella's Waltz [Suite 1 No. 7]—
Midnight [Suite 1 No. 8]
Born: April 23, 1891, in Sontsovka, Ukraine
Died: March 5, 1953, in Moscow
Work composed: 1940–44
First performance: November 21, 1945, in Moscow

Among the hit movies of the current season is Cinderella. A critical success, it is far outpacing
its competition at the box office a week after it opened, and it seems on its way to becoming the
highest-grossing movie of the year.
The film’s popularity is just the latest evidence of the enduring appeal of the Cinderella legend.
The story of the lovely and kind but put-upon girl who wins the hand of a prince was popularized
by Charles Perrault, the French author of fairytales, who published his version in 1697. The
Grimm brothers offered a competing account in 1812, as have several other writers over the
years. Cinderella also has engendered operas by Rossini (one of his most successful works after
The Barber of Seville) and by Massenet; a Broadway-style musical by Rodgers and
Hammerstein; and dozens of films, the most famous being the 1950 Disney animation. Finally,
Cinderella has inspired several ballet scores, the most ambitious and successful being that of
Sergey Prokofiev.
Prokofiev had left his native Russia in 1918, shortly after the country’s epochal revolution, and
spent most of the next two decades living in the West. He returned home in the mid-1930s and
soon busied himself with film and theater projects. One of these came from the Kirov Theater,
which in 1940 commissioned Prokofiev to write music to the Cinderella story. The composer
finished two of the ballet’s three acts by June 1941, when Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union
plunged the nation into crisis. Prokofiev now put Cinderella aside for three years. He returned to
it and completed the score in 1944. The ballet’s first production took place not at the Kirov, as
originally planned, but at the Bolshoi, in Moscow, in November 1945.
Prokofiev subsequently extracted three concert suites from his full ballet score. The movements
we hear during the second half of our program include the entire first suite and one excerpt from
the second. We begin with music that introduces the ballet. Here Prokofiev establishes two
themes associated with the title character. The first is mournful, as befits Cinderella’s sad lot at
the start of the story. This gives way, however, to music expressing her dreams of happiness.
The opening scene finds Cinderella at home, serving her stepmother and stepsisters, while the
household cat scampers about. Our third excerpt begins with Cinderella’s wicked step-sisters are
embroidering a shawl to wear to the palace ball, but they quarrel violently over which of them
will wear it. Later, Cinderella is visited by her Fairy Godmother and four fairies who rule the
seasons. Together, they transform Cinderella into an elegant beauty. Musical representations of
the Winter Fairy and Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother compose the fourth piece we hear.
The remainder of our excerpts presents, slightly out of order, events at the ball. Awaiting the
arrival of the Prince, guests dance a Mazurka. Cinderella enters and soon dances a grand waltz
with the Prince. (This music is from the second of Prokofiev’s three Cinderella suites. We then
hear music for the magic carriage ride that takes Cinderella to the palace.) Cinderella dances
alone, enchanting the Prince. But she has forgotten her Godmother’s admonition not to linger
past midnight, and when chimes strike that hour, she abruptly flees. Our concert concludes at that
suspenseful juncture.

What to Listen For

Following a somber opening, the rippling harp figures accompany music of romantic dreaming.
Cat's Dance makes prominent use of the clarinet, the instrument Prokofiev selected to “portray”
the cat in his children’s story-with-music Peter and the Wolf. Cinderella’s entrance brings a
return of her theme of romantic dreaming, as if to show that her reveries have now become
reality.

Program Notes © 2015 Paul Schiavo