The best traditions of Russian classical and Soviet opera combine with persistent attempts to find new dramatic situations, new images and new expressive devices. In Prokofiev’s last opera, A Story of a Real Man, the episodes describing the plight of the injured Meresyev and the scenes in hospital are produced on the stage with great boldness. All this naturally required new devices. Prokofiev develops the song idiom traditional in Soviet opera in original fashion: the inspired melodies of songs from Northern Russia contrast effectively with the expressive scenes of Alexei’s delirium and the Commissar’s death…