Love of Three Oranges

Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Music And Text: Sergei Prokofiev

Choreographer: Pauline Grant
Conductor: Bernard Haitink
Designer: Maurice Sendak
Producer: Frank Corsaro
Executive Producer: Herbert Chappell
Directed For Video By Rodney Greenberg

Herald / Cook: Roger Bryson
Master Of Ceremonies: Hugh Hetherington
Farfarello: Derek Hammond-Stroud
Princess Linetta: Yvonne Lea
Princess Nicoletta: Susan Moore
Smeraldina: Fiona Kimm
Pantaloon: Peter-Christoph Runge
Leandro: John Pringle
Clarissa: Nucci Condo
Fata Morgana: Nelly Morpurgo
Tchelio: Richard Van Allan
The King: Willard White
Truffaldino: Ugo Benelli
Princess Ninetta: Colette Alliot-Lugaz
The Prince: Ryland Davies

The London Philharmonic Orchestra

Recorded at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in May 1982

The Love for Three Oranges was composed in 1919 by Sergei Prokofiev to a libretto based on the play L'Amore delle tre melarance by Carlo Gozzi.

The play itself is based on Giambattista Basile's fairy tale 'The Love for Three Oranges';. The absurd story is in the Commedia dell'Arte tradition, and concerns a young prince, cursed by a wicked witch and forced to voyage into distant lands in search of three oranges, each of which contains a princess. The libretto was adapted by Prokofiev and Vera Janacopoulos from Vsevolod Meyerhold's translation of Gozzi's play. The adaptation modernized some of the Commedia dell'Arte influences and also introduced a healthy dose of Surrealism.