Sergei Prokofiev - Ballets: Le Pas D'Acier; On the Dnieper

Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)

Ballets

Le Pas D'Acier, Op.41 (1927)

On the Dnieper, Op.51 (1931)

USSR Ministry of Culture SO, 

Gennady Rozhdestvensky

Unknown Masterpieces

Everybody has heard the later Prokofiev ballets (Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella) but the ones from the 20s seem to be completely unknown. They are not only great, but provide an essential puzzle piece to the period. Prokofiev pushes further into his exploration of the mechanization of culture/humanity with these pieces, while still managing to infuse them with the usual incredible Russian lyricism.

On the Dnieper

This is Prokofiev's least popular ballet, discounting (the non-existent) Ala and Lolli, whose music went into the eventually successful Scythian Suite (1914 - 1915). On the Dnieper was the fourth of Prokofiev's ballets, the first three -- Chout (1920), Le pas d'acier (1925) and The Prodigal Son (1928) -- all having received prestigious productions on the Paris stage via Sergey Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes. But with the death of Diaghilev in 1929, the Ballets Russes disbanded.

In 1930, the Théâtre de l'Opéra, however, commissioned Prokofiev to write this ballet, originally entitled On the Dnieper, but renamed Sur le Borysthène because the French had difficulty pronouncing "Dnieper." Serge Lifar provided the choreography. The story centers on a demobilized Russian soldier, Sergei, who, returning home from service in World War I, discovers that his love for his betrothed, Natasha, has vanished. He falls in love with another woman, Olga, but because of her family's violent opposition to their wedding plans, finds he must elope. In the end, the couple is helped to escape by Sergei's faithful former love, Natasha.

The ballet, lasting nearly three-quarters of an hour, has two scenes and 12 numbers. The Introduction presents the main theme, an attractive but slightly arid melody, its character showing more and more of the French influences then creeping into Prokofiev's music. Little of the score, in fact, actually sounds Russian here -- this is one of Prokofiev's most cosmopolitan-sounding works. The next three numbers -- "Meeting," "Mimic Scene," and Pas de deux -- contain interesting but less memorable music, the moods generally subdued and the scoring subtle.

The ensuing "Masculine Variations and Finale" contains lively, colorful music and deft scoring. But it is the first number in scene 2, "Betrothal," that comes across with the greater impact. It contains a theme that seems the perfect mixture of love and pain, of passion and struggle, and it dominates much of the second half of the ballet. It reappears in the ensuing "Bridegroom's Dance" and in the last number, "Epilogue," which also recalls the ballet's opening theme. "The Bride's Dance," No. 8, and "Men's Dance," No. 9, seem to augur Prokofiev's style in Romeo and Juliet (1935-36), the latter number actually containing a variant of that later ballet's motto. In sum, On the Dnieper is an interesting and intriguing but not entirely successful work.

Le pas d'acier

The ballet was commissioned by impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Prokofiev wrote the score, based on a scenario by Georgi Yakulov and Prokofiev, in 1925-1926. With choreography by Léonide Massine, the Ballets Russes premiered the work in Paris at the Théâtre Sarah-Berhardt on June 7, 1927.

The first production of Le pas d'acier was judged a success by Parisian audiences, but after 1931 the ballet was not performed again until 2005. It was then staged at Princeton University, New Jersey in a production described as "faithful to the original, never-performed concept of a celebration of Soviet workers' lives, instead of a mockery of them, which was the version seen by audiences of the early 20th century.

The theme of the ballet centers on life in the then-decade old Soviet Union and features staging with factory machines and sprocketed wheels, the setting for a danced romance between a sailor and a young girl factory worker.