Semyon Kotko
TheUK premiere of Prokofiev's opera, staged by the Kirov Opera undertheir artistic director Valery Gergiev at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Semyon Kotko was Prokofiev's conscious effort to write a Soviet opera, at the height of Stalin's repression inthethirties-Meyerhold, who was to be the original director, was arrested during the rehearsals. Despite everything, the result is thrilling music and drama. Semyon Kotko is an ordinary Ukranian peasant caught up in the civil war that followed the 1917 revolution, a poor soldier who loves the daughter of a rich landowner.
Chorus and Orchestra of Kirov Opera, conductor Valery Gergiev j