Sergey Prokofiev diaries: 11 June 1913

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

437-438

text excerpt

After dinner Andreyev invited me to Drury Lane for the premiere performance of Boris. All the tickets had been sold at astronomic prices, but it would be possible to listen from the wings. This was very interesting to me, and so I went. As an outsider I had great difficulty in gaining admission, however, and had to fend off several attempts to eject me. 

Chaliapin is an artist to whom I bow the knee. He was very nervous, since this was his debut performance before an English audience. He paced about the wings like a wild beast in a cage before going out on stage. But his success was colossal. I sat in the wings with Shteiman, and we agreed that we would see London and its environs together, since neither he nor I had yet had a chance to do so. Also, since neither of us could speak the language, it would be less alarming if we were together...

In the interval I went out into the foyer to gaze upon the audience, the cream of society in the height of fashion. Nothing in the world is more fashionable than a London premiere! And indeed, the audience shone with unexampled brilliance, especially the London gentlemen. If Paris outshines London in the matter of the feminine toilette, it must yield second place to the impeccably turned-out English cavalier. I thought of Max.

Boris is a superb opera. Musorgsky's feeling for the stage was unerring, his is an ideal model of how to write for it. I have a tremendous desire to write an opera. My opera will be a good opera, a true one!

excerpt from 'Sergey Prokofiev diaries: 11 June 1913' pp. 437-438 (274 words)

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