Semyon Kotko

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Work data
Title: Semyon Kotko
Original title: Семён Котко
Original language: Russian
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Libretto : Sergei Prokofiev
Literary source: I, a son of the working people of Valentin Kataev
Premiere: June 23, 1940
Place of premiere: Art theater in Moscow
Playing time: 3.5 hours
Place and time of the action: Ukraine, 1918
people
  • Semjon Kotko, former soldier, tenor
  • Semjon's mother, mezzo-soprano
  • Frosja, Semjon's sister, mezzo-soprano
  • Tkachenko, former sergeant, bass
  • Xiwrja, his wife, mezzo-soprano
  • Sofja, his daughter, soprano
  • Remenyuk, chairman of the village council and partisan commander, Bass
  • Ivassenko, old man, bass
  • Mikola, his son, tenor
  • Wassiki Zarjew, sailor, baritone
  • Lyubka, his bride, soprano
  • Highwayman

Semjon Kotko , op. 81, ( Russian Семён Котко ) is an opera in five acts (seven images). The libretto comes from Sergei Prokofjew and Valentin Katajew, based on his story Ich, ein Sohn des Arbeits Volk ( Russian Я, сын трудового народа… ; 1937). The work was published in 1939. It was (besides The Story of the Real Man from 1948) a play with an emphatically political character.

Emergence

Against the background of the Soviet art doctrine and the “song-like opera” movement that had shaped Soviet musical theater in the 1930s, Prokofiev attempted “to latch onto the life of the Soviet Union and, in his claim to himself, to fulfill the social mission of the To take art seriously ”, he turned to the then very popular story Ich, a son of the working people . This work fitted into the catalog of criteria of socialist realism ; there was "essentially a distorted picture of life in a Ukrainian village during the civil war ." Prokofiev justified his choice by saying that he

“Living people with all their passions, which result from the new conditions, who should show love, hate, joy and sorrow. […] Here there is youthful love, here there is the hatred of the representatives of the old world, here there is the heroic struggle, tearful losses, but also happy jokes that are characteristic of Ukrainian humor. "

The material chosen by Prokofiev stood out positively “against the background of the pompous and direct indoctrination of those innumerable works that [knitted] the myth of the civil war, with its indomitable communists in leather jackets and the disgusting spawns of hell that stood on the other side of the barricade . ”The action, set in a Ukrainian village, also gave Prokofiev the opportunity to immerse his heroes in a folkloric atmosphere, following the example of numerous operas based on Gogol's stories. As in a number of earlier operas by Prokofiev, " Semyon Kotko organically connects two plans of action: an external and an internal." The characteristics of the external storyline include the course of the wedding ceremony, the retaliation of the enemy and the attack of the daring attacked, most recently the Triumph of the just cause of the people who took up arms. The other storyline is defined by “the mainsprings of the characters involved, through their inner nature, through the veracity of the characters. The basis of the opera's dramatic conflict was the confrontation between two heroes [...] between whom there could be no reconciliation. ”These were the ex-soldier Semjon Kotko and his antipode Tkachenko, a rich peasant who is also the father of his lover Sofja. Tkachenko's "inventive spirit tries all tricks to prevent his daughter's union with the hated Kotko under any pretext."

action

A Ukrainian village in 1918. Semyon Kotko returns to the village after four years of war and, since he can now live as a free farmer on the property of the expropriated landowner Tkachenko, wants to marry his lover Sofja. Kotko tells his friends and mother about the great revolutionary events that he witnessed. Kotko, who has returned home from the civil war front, is convinced that peaceful work and marriage to his beloved girl await him at home. He soon takes the side of those who strive for a new order in which, according to their ideas, there can be no room for oppression. The lover becomes the ardent soldier of the revolution; Kotko has to flee, returns as a partisan and frees Sofja with his Red Army soldiers in front of the altar of the village church.

Opera music

The different characters are outlined by Prokofiev by means of “the movement of the intonation events ” that accompany the vicissitudes of the subject and the statements of the characters. The composer said:

"I consider the melodic element to be one of the most important components of a musical work and therefore paid special attention to the melodic side of Semjon Kotko."

The principle of leitmotifs is particularly noticeable in Semjon Kotko ; they either become purely instrumental formulas or they arise on the basis of characteristic vowel replicas. The opera is therefore totally permeated with “song-likeness”, “although the role of the actual songs, the strophic song forms, is relatively small.” An example of these “self-contained, relief-like melodies” is the debut of the main hero Semjo Kotko, “with the means of vocal intonation the impulsiveness, the heat of the hero, his selflessness towards the beloved, his tenderness and reliability are underlined ”. In contrast, the Tkachenko selected, changeable intonation portrait shows his mood swings. In describing the other heroes, Prokofiev followed the line that demanded that representatives of “the just cause of the revolution” should be endowed with sympathetic human qualities and made spokesmen for positive moral values.

Prokofiev integrated self-contained melodies into the dramaturgy, in which elements of the Ukrainian folk song are reflected; underneath is the choral theme Very early, yes in the morning . A completed choir number is based on the text Legacy of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko .

Suite from Semjon Kotko

The orchestral suite, Op. 81a consists of eight sections, with a total duration of 40 minutes.

  1. introduction
  2. Semyon and his mother
  3. The engagement
  4. The night of the south
  5. execution
  6. The village is on fire
  7. funeral
  8. Ours are coming

Discography (selection)

  • Mikhail Zhukov, Radio Symphony Orchestra of the USSR, N. Gres, T. Yanko, T. Antipova, G. Troitsky, N. Panekhin, A. Kleshcheva, L. Gelovani (Moscow 1960)
  • Valery Gergiev , Orchestra and Choir of the Kirov Theater, Viktor Lutsiuk, Lyudmila Filatova, Olga Savova, Yevgeny Nikitin, Gennady Bezzubenkov, Olga Markova-Mikhailenko, Tatiana Pavlovskaya (Vienna 1999)
  • Wladimir Jurowski , Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Groot Omroepkoor, Vlaams Radio Koor, Oleg Dolgov, Alexandra Durseneva, Alexandra Kadurina, Evelina Dobračeva, Vladimir Ognev, Maxim Mikhailov, Irina Dolzhenko, Lyubov Petrova, Andrey Breus (Amsterdam 2016)

Recordings of the suite from Semjon Kotko

orchestra ladder Label Year of admission format
Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin Rolf Kleinert Urania 1955 LP
Scottish National Orchestra Neeme Järvi Chandos 1989 CD
WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne Mikhail Jurovsky CPO 1997 CD
USSR Radio / TV Large Symphony Orchestra Gennady Roshdestvensky Russian Revelation 1985 CD

Performance history

The opera premiered on June 23, 1940 in the Moscow Art Theater under the direction of actress Serafina Birman . The conductor Michail Schukow (1901–1960) was responsible for the first re-performance of the opera, which took place in Perm during the " thaw period " in 1960. In 2000 Viktor Luzjuk made a guest appearance with the ensemble of the Marienskij-Theater under the direction of Valeri Gergiev at the Covent Garden Opera in London in the title role of Semjon Kotko .

effect

A bitter polemic flared up about the opera and its performance; As expected, Semjon Kotko got caught in the crossfire of cultural ideologues. The followers of the "song-like opera", mainly activists of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) attacked Prokofiev with furious attacks; "The entire opera only reveals a disturbed relationship to folk music ". Prokofiev's opera also found many defenders; the discussion was documented in the magazine Soviet Music 1940. The opera was no longer performed during Prokofiev's lifetime.

Disaffected, Prokofiev wrote in his diary:

"Usually you want to forget the effort that did not lead to the goal, how to avoid something painful, but the opera 'Semjon Kotko' sticks in my memory and cannot be forgotten by me."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reports and Information - Volume 18 1963, page 82
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Michail Tarakonow: Semjon Kotko . In: International Music Festival - Sergei Prokofiev and contemporary music from the Soviet Union. Program book. City of Duisburg, 1990, p. 166 ff.
  3. ^ Sigrid Neef, Hermann Neef: Handbook of Russian and Soviet Opera . 1989, p. 365
  4. ^ Sigrid Neef: Sergei Prokofiev's operas . 2009, page 183
  5. ↑ Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . 2004, - Volume 4, page 2825
  6. ^ A b Maria Biesold Sergej Prokofjew: Composer in the shadow of Stalin . 1996, page 247.
  7. ↑ Sergey Prokofiev, Semen Isaakovich Shlifshteĭn: Sergei Prokofjew: Documents, Letters, Memoirs , 1965, page 473