It was first performed under the direction of the composer at the Opéra, Paris on April 30, 1934 in a double bill with the ballet Diane de Poitiers by Jacques Ibert.
The premiere was staged by the ballet company of Ida Rubinstein, with Rubinstein herself dancing and speaking the part of Proserpina and the tenor René Maison singing Eumolphe.
It was also premiered at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires under Stravinsky himself in 1934, and then in Rio de Janeiro.
Victoria Ocampo, an important intellectual from Argentina, was present at the premier in Buenos Aires, and she said, "It's pretty good". (A friend of hers, Carolina, was also there, but she got "mighty bored", "except for seeing my friends in the interlude").
It was reprised at the Colón in 1995 with China Zorrilla under Pedro Ignacio Calderón.
Other choreographed versions have included those of George Balanchine, Kurt Jooss (1955), Frederick Ashton (1961),[1] and Pina Bausch (1965). (Martha Graham's "Persephone," ironically, is accompanied by Stravinsky's Symphony in C.)
It was recorded by Stravinsky himself with Vera Zorina and also under André Cluytens (with Nicolai Gedda, 1955, Paris), Sir Andrew Davis (with Paul Groves, London) and Michael Tilson Thomas (with Stuart Neill, 1999, San Francisco).
The premiere was staged by the ballet company of Ida Rubinstein, with Rubinstein herself dancing and speaking the part of Proserpina and the tenor René Maison singing Eumolphe.
It was also premiered at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires under Stravinsky himself in 1934, and then in Rio de Janeiro.
Victoria Ocampo, an important intellectual from Argentina, was present at the premier in Buenos Aires, and she said, "It's pretty good". (A friend of hers, Carolina, was also there, but she got "mighty bored", "except for seeing my friends in the interlude").
It was reprised at the Colón in 1995 with China Zorrilla under Pedro Ignacio Calderón.
Other choreographed versions have included those of George Balanchine, Kurt Jooss (1955), Frederick Ashton (1961),[1] and Pina Bausch (1965). (Martha Graham's "Persephone," ironically, is accompanied by Stravinsky's Symphony in C.)
It was recorded by Stravinsky himself with Vera Zorina and also under André Cluytens (with Nicolai Gedda, 1955, Paris), Sir Andrew Davis (with Paul Groves, London) and Michael Tilson Thomas (with Stuart Neill, 1999, San Francisco).
Roles[edit]
- Eumolphe, tenor René Maison
- Perséphone, ballerina Ida Rubinstein
- Demetra-Dometer, ballerina Krakowska
- Mercure, dancer Anatole Viltzak
- Pluton, dancer
- Démophoon, dancer
Synopsis[edit]
It tells the story of the Greek goddess Persephone in three parts:- 1. L'enlèvement de Perséphone (The Abduction of Persephone);
- 2. Perséphone aux Enfers (Persephone in the Underworld);
- 3. Renaissance de Perséphone (Rebirth of Persephone).
References[edit]
- Sources
- Amadeus Almanac, accessed 1 August 2008
- Holden, Amanda (Ed.). The New Penguin Opera Guide. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. ISBN 0-14-029312-4
Further reading[edit]
- Levitz, Tamara: Modernist Mysteries: Perséphone. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-19-973016-2
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