Some Angel

Sergei Prokofiev loved to write operas, but the world did not seem to care for them. His first mature one, Magdalene, was never produced; his second, The Gambler, had one performance in Brussels and then disappeared; the failure of his third, The Love for Three Oranges, in the U.S. in 1921-22 so disappointed

Russian Composer Prokofiev that he fled the U.S., where he had been touring since 1918. For 18 months he hid out in the depths of Bavaria--to finish another opera.

It had everything. The Flaming Angel was set in medieval Germany, where witchcraft and inquisitions were the leading pastimes. The heroine was a virgin with visions who turned her search for sainthood into earthly passions before she was finally burned at the stake. Even better was the music, which Prokofiev himself declared "my greatest." But all this was not good enough; despite the efforts of such famed conductors as Bruno Walter and Serge Koussevitzky, no opera house was willing to stage the gigantic work. Prokofiev despaired of ever getting it produced--to the extent of lifting his Third Symphony almost entirely from it --and eventually it simply vanished.

Three years ago, shortly before the composer's death in Russia, an employee in the Paris branch of British Music Publishers Boosey & Hawkes found the manuscript in the basement. Last week the work finally had its stage premiere at Venice's International Music Festival.

It was soon clear why nobody had dared try Flaming Angel before. For one thing, the leading soprano is onstage singing almost constantly--for five long acts. Texas Soprano Dorothy Dow, famed for her ability to sing demanding modern roles (TIME, June 16, 1952), found herself singing while lying on a bed being seduced and while having convulsions.

Equally taxing were the opera's numerous scenic effects. Examples: a skeleton hanging on a wall that suddenly begins to sing and flail its arms; a scene where Mephistopheles throws a small boy on a table, carves him up and swallows him (in the Venice production, the boy actually disappeared in a flash of light as the knife descended).

But with Prokofiev's music behind it, even the most outrageous scene became plausible. The almost continuous recitative was punctuated with honest, lyrical arias, and a couple of taut musical interludes showed just how high a master could build tension. When it was all over, the audience stripped roses from the theater boxes to toss at the cast's feet, and the press tossed rosy adjectives. Would any other opera house undertake it? Probably not without drastic cuts--and a new leading lady. Said Soprano Dow: "They can do it again, but not with me. I don't want to lose my voice."

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