Sergei Prokofiev - The Buffon (Ballet in Six Scenes) Op.21

Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)

The Buffon (Chout) Op.21 (1915/21)

Ballet in Six Scenes

The USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra

Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

Re-edition 1987

About:

Chout, Op. 21, is a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev. It was originally composed in 1915, then extensively revised at the request of Serge Diaghilev in 1921. The composer extracted an orchestral suite from it, Op. 21 bis. The ballet's full title is Tale of the Jester Who Outwits Seven Other Jesters (Russian: Сказка про шута, семерых шутов перешутившего, romanized: Skazka pro shuta, semerykh shutov pereshutivshego). The most commonly used title for the work is based on the French transliteration of the Russian word for "jester", shut.

Chout was Prokofiev's first completed ballet score for Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev had first commissioned Ala and Lolli but rejected the score submitted by Prokofiev. Although the composer recast some of the music as the Scythian Suite, the projected ballet never saw the light of day. Instead, Diaghilev asked Prokofiev to write a ballet based on a folk tale recorded by Alexander Afanasyev. The story had been previously suggested to Diaghilev by Igor Stravinsky as a possible subject for a ballet, and Diaghilev and his choreographer Léonide Massine helped Prokofiev to shape this into a ballet scenario.

The story involves seven buffoons who all murder their wives after being told by an eighth buffoon that he has killed his own wife and brought her back to life with a magic whip and promises to do the same for them. When he fails to deliver on his promise, the other buffoons seek revenge. The principal buffoon is forced to disguise himself as a woman and is chosen for marriage by a wealthy merchant. He escapes after swindling the merchant out of 300 roubles.

Prokofiev wrote the score in 1915. Although Diaghilev was again not happy with the music, this time he was prepared to work with the composer to recast it into six scenes and retain the best parts of the music already written. He also wanted new entr'actes to make the music play continuously, which Prokofiev did, but not until 1920. In the meantime, the ballet was not produced. He revised the score while staying at Mantes-sur-Seine near Paris. He wrote the piano reduction while travelling by ship to the United States and finished the full score in early 1921 after his return to France. He played through the score for Stravinsky in Paris, who liked it. Shortly afterwards, Diaghilev also approved the changes. Over 40 per cent of the original score was either deleted or rewritten, and the required additional entr'actes were composed.

The first performance of the ballet was given by the Ballets Russes on 17 May 1921, at the Théâtre Municipal de la Gaîté, Paris, with choreography by Fyodor Slavinsky and supervision by Mikhail Larionov. The orchestra was conducted by the composer.[3] It was fairly well received, however the London premiere on 9 June was bitterly attacked by audiences and critics alike.