Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel - Gorchakova, Leiferkus - Gergiev 1993Galina Gorchakova, Sergei Leiferkus
St. Petersburg Maryinsky Acrobatic Troup
Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg
Kirov Opera, Valery Gergiev
Prokofiev's disturbingly enigmatic opera, The Fiery Angel, was never performed in his lifetime - considered too decadent by Stalin and his successors - but David Freeman's imaginative production asserts it as one of the composer's greatest masterpieces.
Ostensibly, it is a tale of religious hysteria and demonic possession, but the novel, by the Russian decadent Valéry Bryusov, from which the opera is derived, also explores symbolically the love triangle endured by the writer himself, inspired by the self-destructive figure of his lover, the poet Nina Petrovskaya.
David Freeman has completely entered into this opera's strangely unnerving world. Evil is all around us and in his sensational production the image is taken quite literally.
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