Ognenniy angel (The Fiery Angel), Op. 37

Composer: Prokofiev, Sergey

Conductor: Gergiev, Valery

Orchestra: St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra

Chorus: St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre Chorus

Agrippa: Galouzine, Vladimir

Doctor: Lebed, Valery

Faust: Aleksashkin, Sergei

Fortune-teller: Diadkova, Larissa

Host: Fedotov, Evgeni

Hostess: Perlasova-Verkovich, Evgenia

Inquisitor: Ognovenko, Vladimir

Jakob Glock: Boitsov, Evgeni

Mathias: Laptev, Yuri

Mephistopheles: Pluzhnikov, Konstantin

Mother Superior: Markova-Mikhailenko, Olga

Porter: Kit, Mikhail

Renata: Gorchakova, Galina

Ruprecht: Leiferkus, Sergey

Set Designer: David, Roger

Costume Designer: David, Roger

Lighting Designer: Lukasevich, Vladimir

Lighting Designer: Whitson, Steve

Stage Director: Freeman, David

Television Director: Large, Brian

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Date of Production: 1993

Venue: Mariinsky Concert Hall, St. Peterbusg

Playing Time: 02:03:30

Catalogue Number: R0611

UPC: 0807280039191

Synopsis

Ognenniy angel (The Fiery Angel), Op. 37

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Prokofiev's disturbingly enigmatic opera, The Fiery Angel, was never performed in his lifetime - considered too decadent by Stalin and his successors - but David Freeman's imaginative production asserts it as one of the composer's greatest masterpieces.

Ostensibly, it is a tale of religious hysteria and demonic possession, but the novel, by the Russian decadent Valéry Bryusov, from which the opera is derived, also explores symbolically the love triangle endured by the writer himself, inspired by the self-destructive figure of his lover, the poet Nina Petrovskaya.

David Freeman has completely entered into this opera's strangely unnerving world. Evil is all around us and in his sensational production the image is taken quite literally.