Music
Sergei Prokofiev

Cast
The King of Clubs: Alexei Tanovitsky
The Prince: Andrei Ilyushnikov
Princess Clarissa: Nadezhda Serdjuk
Leandro: Eduard Tsanga
Truffaldino: Kirill Dushechkin
Pantaloon: Vladislav Sulimsky
Celio: Pavel Schmulevich
Fata Morgana: Ekaterina Shimanovitch
Linetta: Sophie Tellier
Nicoletta: Natalia Yevstafieva
Ninetta: Julia Smorodina
The Cook: Yuriy Vorobiev
Farfarello: Alexander Gerasimov
Smeraldina: Ekaterina Tsenter
The Herald: Wojciek Ziarnik

Tugan Sokhiev (Conductor)
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra
From the open-air Theatre du Grand St Jean, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival


Prokofiev's satirical four-act opera is among the most frequently-performed of his operas in the West, and is written in the commedia dell'arte tradition around the construct of an opera-within-an-opera.

Synopsis
The plot is fantastic in all senses: The melancholy, ailing son of the King of Clubs will die if he doesn't laugh. All attempts at humour fail to tickle him, until an unscheduled bit of slapstick courtesy of the resident witch, Fata Morgana, succeeds where all others failed. Furious, she prophesies that he will fall in love with three oranges, and the smitten Prince leaves to pursue the fruits of his desire. He finds them, and discovers that each orange contains a princess. Sadly, two die of thirst, but the third, Ninetta, survives and is eventually united with the Prince.

This colourful production was recorded live from the open-air Theatre du Grand St Jean at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. An engagingly lunatic piece, anti-naturalistic and self-consciously avant-garde, the opera requires the singers to take part in a riot of stage activity that moves at break-neck pace. The young, all-Russian cast chosen for this production hold their own both vocally and theatrically and their high spirits play well against Aurore Popineau's fabulous part-Punk, part-cartoon, part-Cage aux Folles costumes and Marc Stehlé's trash Hollywood sets.