Perséphone (Stravinsky)

Template:Stravinsky operas 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.

It was first performed under the direction of the composer at the Opéra, Paris on April 30, 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.

It was also premiered at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires with Victoria Ocampo under Stravinsky himself in 1934, and then in Rio de Janeiro. It was reprised at the Colón in 1995 with China Zorrilla under Pedro Ignacio Calderón.

Other versions include George Balanchine's, Kurt Jooss (1955), Pina Bausch's(1965) and Martha Graham own choreographies.

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).

Roles

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

Synopsis

It tells the story of the Greek goddess Persephone in three parts:

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

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 1 August 2008
• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)