Stravinsky

Burlesques in song and dance
with the participation of the Demmeni Puppet Theatre

Artistes of the Demmeni Marionette Theatre:
Arkady Mirohin, Anna Mironova,
Irina Krivchionok, Olga Fyodorova
Narrator – Yuri Dormidontov

Musical Director: Valery Gergiev
Conductor: Mikhail Tatarnikov
Stage Director: Eduard Gayday
Set Designer: Alexander Alexeyev
Lighting Designer: Kamil Kutyev

Premiere of this production: 7 February 2010

The Fable of the Fox... with the subheading “a merry performance with singing and dancing” is a one-act amusement in “cheap print” Russian style in which Stravinsky once again turns to the traditions of jesters’ “laughing” theatre. The subject of Russian tales from Afanasiev’s folkloric collection, where the instructive story of human weaknesses takes on the form of an allegorical menagerie of beasts, gave the composer a mass of ways to instrument his extremely witty musical discoveries, as a result of which was the creation of one of the best comic masterpieces of the 20^th century. The story of a fleeing soldier who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for a miraculous violin and a magic book is borrowed from the same collection.
Nadezhda Kulygina