Khan Buzay

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Work data
Title: Khan Buzay
Original language: Russian
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Libretto : Mira Mendelson , Sergei Prokofiev
people
  • Khan Buzah
  • Ayshan
  • Tschuman, hairdresser

Khan Buzay , op. 86 ( Russian Хан Буцае ), is an unrealized opera in two acts (49 images) by Sergei Prokofjew , based on Kazakh folklore. The libretto was written by Sergei Prokofjew and Mira Mendelson, who worked on the opera in 1943 and 1946.

Emergence

After Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1927 , Zatjewitsch presented him with a copy of an autograph with a collection of songs that he finally categorized according to their character and ritual properties in the early 1940s while preparing for a state commissioned composition, the opera Khan Buzay ; he was helped by an essay published in August / September 1939 in the magazine Literatur und Kunst in Kazakhstan ( Literatura i iskusstvo Kazakhstana ). 99 of the melodies fell into the group of calm lyricism , with a subgroup of twelve songs that he selected for eventual use in opera. The other categories were sad and angry tunes , slow and fast dances, broad- based tunes, lamentations, and marches.

The plot of the story about Khan Buzay was that this overpowering Khan wears two horns that endow him with courage and wisdom, but also with control over people. As an aftermath of his work with Eisenstein , Alexander Fayntsimmer and Michaeil Romm , Prokofjew Kahn planned Buzay as a cinematographic opera; the three acts were divided into shots ( kadri ), some of which were less than a minute long. Prokofiev planned 22 of these settings for the first act and 27 for the second act. Although intended for a smaller regional theater, Prokofiev always had a large-format opera in mind. While he had replaced the number format with well-composed elements in The Player , The Love of the Three Oranges , The Fiery Angel and Semjon Kotko , in Khan Buzay he in turn replaced this with cinematographic vignettes. "In Khan Buzay , dramaturgical thesis and antithesis achieved a synthesis."

Mira Mendelson did most of the work on the libretto in collaboration with the composer during his stay in Perm in September 1943. Prokofiev completed the piano sheet music on September 15, and the orchestration on November 1, 1943. After his return to Moscow after the end of the war, he interrupted work on the opera and did not resume until 1946, when he rearranged the scenes and had Mira type the manuscript. On August 23, 1946, he finally gave up the project, but waited until April 16, 1947 to officially inform the Art Affairs Commission that he had stopped work on the opera project and was now ready to refund the payments received for it . At this point Prokofiev put the opera aside in favor of the violin sonata in F major , which he had begun in 1938. 49 sheets of the opera manuscript, written on both sides, have survived.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Francis Maes: A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar . 2002, page 315
  2. ↑ a b c Simon Morrison: The People's Artist: Prokofiev's Soviet Years , p. 276