Perséphone is a musical work (mélodrame) for speaker, solo singers, chorus, dancers and orchestra with music by Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 and a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by André Gide

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

.

It was first performed under the direction of the composer at the Opéra

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 on April 30, 1934 in a double bill with the ballet "Diane de Poitiers" by Jacques Ibert

Jacques Ibert

Jacques François Antoine Ibert was a French composer. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his first attempt, despite studies interrupted by his service in World War I.Ibert pursued a successful composing career,...

. The premiere was staged by the ballet company of Ida Rubinstein

Ida Rubinstein

Ida Lvovna Rubinstein was a Russian ballerina, actress, patron and Belle Époque figure.- Early life :Born in Kharkov, or possibly St. Petersburg,p408 into a wealthy Jewish family, Rubinstein was orphaned at an early age. She had, by the standard of Russian ballet, little formal training. Tutored...

, with Rubinstein herself dancing and speaking the part of Persephone and the tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 René Maison

René Maison

René Maison was a prominent Belgian operatic tenor, particularly associated with heroic roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.-Career:...

 singing Eumolphe

Eumolpus

In Greek mythology, Eumolpus was the son of Poseidon and Chione. According to Apollodorus, Chione, daughter of Boreas and Oreithyia, pregnant with Eumolpus by Poseidon, was frightened of her father's reaction so she threw the baby into the ocean...

.

It was also premiered at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 with Victoria Ocampo

Victoria Ocampo

Victoria Ocampo Aguirre was an Argentine writer and intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as La mujer más argentina ....

 under Stravinsky himself in 1934, and then in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

. It was reprised at the Colón in 1995 with China Zorrilla

China Zorrilla

China Zorrilla is an award-winning Uruguayan theater, film and television actress....

 under Pedro Ignacio Calderón.

Other versions include George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

's, Kurt Jooss

Kurt Jooss

Kurt Jooss was a famous ballet dancer and choreographer mixing classical ballet with theatre; he is also widely regarded as the founder of dance theatre or tanztheater...

 (1955), Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch

Philippina "Pina" Bausch was a German performer of modern dance, choreographer, dance teacher and ballet director...

's(1965) and Martha Graham

Martha Graham

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

 own choreographies.

It was recorded by Stravinsky himself with Vera Zorina

Vera Zorina

Vera Zorina was a Norwegian ballerina, musical theatre actress and choreographer.-Background:Vera Zorina was born Eva Brigitta Hartwig in Berlin, Germany. Her father Fritz was a German and her mother Billie Hartwig was Norwegian. Both were professional singers...

 and also under André Cluytens

André Cluytens

André Cluytens was a Belgian-born French conductor who was active in the concert hall, opera house and recording studio. His repertoire extended from Viennese classics through French composers to 20th century works...

 (with Nicolai Gedda

Nicolai Gedda

Nicolai Gedda is a Swedish operatic tenor. Having made some two hundred recordings, Gedda is said to be the most widely recorded tenor in history...

, 1955, Paris), Sir Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis (conductor)

Sir Andrew Frank Davis CBE is a British conductor.Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire to Robert J. Davis and his wife Florence J. née Badminton, Davis grew up in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and in Watford. Davis attended Watford Boys' Grammar School, where he studied classics in his sixth form years...

 (with Paul Groves

Paul Groves (tenor)

Paul Groves is an American operatic tenor. In 1991 he won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and in 1995 he won the prestigious Richard Tucker Award...

, London) and Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...

 (with Stuart Neill, 1999, San Francisco).

Roles

• Eumolphe, tenor
  Tenor
  The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
  
   René Maison
  René Maison
  René Maison was a prominent Belgian operatic tenor, particularly associated with heroic roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.-Career:...
  
  
• Perséphone, ballerina
  Ballerina
  A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
  
  Ida Rubinstein
• Demetra-Dometer, ballerina Krakowska
• Mercure, dancer Anatole Viltzak
• Pluton, dancer
• Démophoon, dancer

Synopsis

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).

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 1 August 2008
• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)