by GWENDOLINE PARKE
Prokofiev's opera The Love of the Three Oranges is based on a fantastic fairy tale of a Prince who, to cure himself of a melancholy inability to laugh, must win the love of one of three oranges, which are, of course, princesses under a spell. He succeeds in finding one of them to love him and all ends well.
The suite made from the music of the opera contains this bizarre but humorous march, so characteristic of the Prokofiev of that period in his cnreer.