Renard (Stravinsky)
Renard | |
---|---|
Comic opera by Igor Stravinsky | |
Native title | Ба́йка про лису́, петуха́, кота́, да барана́ |
Librettist | Stravinsky |
Based on | Russian folk tale |
Renard: histoire burlesque chantée et jouée, or The Fox:
History
In April 1915, Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Stravinsky to write a piece that could be played in her salon. She paid the composer 2,500 Swiss francs. The work was completed in Morges, Switzerland in 1916, and Stravinsky himself made a staging plan, trying to avoid any resemblance to conventional operatic staging . He created, rather, a new form of theatre in which the acrobatic dance is connected with singing, and the declamation comments on the musical action. However, the piece was never performed in the salon of the princess. It was not in fact staged until 1922.
The premiere, a double bill with Mavra, was given on 18 May 1922 by the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre de l’Opéra, Paris. Other sources indicate 2 June as the date of the premiere.[1] It was conducted by Ernest Ansermet with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and decorations and costumes by Mikhail Larionov. Stravinsky remained pleased with Nijinska's "acrobatic Renard, which coincided with my ideas... Renard was also a real Russian satire. The animals saluted very like the Russian Army (Orwell would have liked this), and there was always an underlying significance to their movements."
In 1929,
Synopsis
This is a moralizing story, a farmyard fairy tale about
As in his later ballet Les noces, Stravinsky employs here the singers as part of the orchestra, and the vocal parts are not identified with specific characters.
Details about the score
Publication
Geneva: A. Henn, 1917; London: J. & W. Chester, 1917; Vienna: Wiener Philharmonischer Verlag. 1917; (as Bajka: veseloe predstavlenie s peniem i muzykoj) Moscow: Muzyka, 1973.
Duration c. 15–20 minutes.
Dedication: "Très respectueusement dédié a Madame la
Scoring
Singers: 2
Ensemble:
Translations
The French translation by
Discrepancies
There are many discrepancies between full and vocal scores, particularly the PV's extra bass drum beat at the beginning, the study score's downbeat at the start of the allegro (not heard on Stravinsky's recording), the rebarring between figures 21 and 22, and the PV's missing third beat of the bassoon before figure 24.
Score and music sample
Stravinsky first developed here an original technique of
Recordings
key: conductor – petukh (cock; tenor 1)/lisa (fox; tenor 2)/kot (cat; bass 1)/baran (ram; bass 2) – year recorded – first label
- Craft – Harmon/Hess/Galjour/Lishner – 1950 – Dial
- Ansermet – Sénéchal/Cuénod/Depraz/Rehfuss – 1956 – Decca
- Boulez – Giraudeau/Devos/Rondeleux/Depraz – 1961 – Disques Adès
- Stravinsky – Shirley/Driscoll/Murphy/Gramm – 1962 – Columbia
- Ansermet – English/Mitchinson/Glossop/Rouleau – 1964 – Decca
- Dutoit – Blazer/Tappy/Huttenlocher/Bastin – 1973 – Erato
- Mihály – Keönch/Gulyás/Polgár/Bordás – 1979 – Hungaroton
- Dunand – Marchisio/Blazer/Brodard/Loup – 1982 – Rencontre
- Chailly – Jenkins-N/Langridge/Hammond-Stroud/Lloyd – 1985 – Decca
- Salonen – Aler/Robson/Wilson-Johnson/Tomlinson – 1990 – Sony
- Ziegler – Harrhy/Hetherington/Donnelly/Cavallier – 1991 – ASV
- Craft – Baker-T/Martin-D/Evitts/Pauley – 1993 – MusicMasters 67110-2
- Wolff – Aler/Kelley/Opalach/Cheek – 1994 – Teldec
- Conlon – Caley/Grivnov/Naouri/Mikhailov – 1999 – EMI
- Craft – Aler/Spears/Evitts/Pauley – 2005 – Naxos
- Mantovani – Brutscher/Saelens/Gnatiuk/Nédélec – 2013 – PP distribution
- Gergiev – Timchenko/Trofimov/Petryanik/Vlasov – 2021 – Mariinsky label
References
Notes
- ^ Festival d'Aix en Provence : 1948–2008, and Conversations page 89 says "in June 1922"
- ^ Stravinsky, Igor; Craft, Robert. Memories and Commentaries. p. 40.
- ^ Conversations page 102
- ^ "...he prepared his own English translation for a performance in Los Angeles in 1953. The text of the present recording is based on this but emended in several places..." booklet accompanying Music of Igor Stravinsky vol. 7 (Naxos 8.557505)
- ^ Conversations With Igor Stravinsky (University of California Press 1958) page 35
Sources
- Stravinsky, Igor. Renard: Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée / The Fox: A burlesque in song and dance / Reinecke: Gesungene und Gespielte Burleske, miniature score, text in Russian, French, and German. London: J. & W. Chester Ltd., 1917.
- Stravinsky, Igor. Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons. English translation by Arthur Knodell and Ingolf Dahl, preface by George Seferis. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1939–40. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1947. Reprinted, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970, ISBN 0-674-67855-9. Originally published in French, as Poétique musicale sous forme de six leçons. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1939–1940. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1942.
- Stravinsky, Igor, and ISBN 0-520-04040-6
- Stravinsky, Igor, An Autobiography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998 (©1936). ISBN 0-393-31856-7(Originally published New York: Simon & Schuster). [Ghostwritten by Walter Nouvel]