The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts > Exhibitions

Prokofiev and His Contemporaries: The Impact of Soviet Culture

From October 15, 2003 through March 27, 2004
Vincent Astor Gallery
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498 (directions)

Prokofiev
Photograph of Sergei Prokofiev, inscribed to Carl Lachmund, New York, 1920. Lachmund, a pianist, teacher and founder of the Women’s String Orchestra, had been a student of Franz Liszt. Carl Lachmund Collection, Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

This exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev's death by focusing on Soviet culture of the 1920s through 1940s and its impact on American performing arts. It is a project of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the MusicaRussia Foundation and features artifacts from the Library for the Performing Arts, the Glinka Archives and State Central Museum of Music, the Bolshoi Theater Museum, and the Stanislavsky and Nemerovich-Danchenko Theater of Moscow.

The composer spanned the turbulent first half of the 20th century, through revolutions and two world wars. He and his Soviet composers – such as Dmitri Shostakovich, Reinhold Gliere, Boris Assafiev, Ivan Dzerzhinsky, and Tikon Khrennikov – moved from revolutionary fervor through fascinations with popular entertainment, constructivism, nationalism, and the state-favored socialist realism. Prokofiev also intersected with the careers of many innovators of the Soviet era, from George Balanchine to film director Sergei Eisenstein. Also featured in the exhibition are the scenic artists of the Soviet Constructivist theater/dance, such as Mikhail Larianov, Natalia Goncharova, and Alexandra Exter, and director/playwrights Constantin Stanislavsky, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Vsevolod Meyerhold. American audiences were influenced by occasional tours and immigration, so much so that Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre inspired naturalism, or "method" acting, which is now considered the "American" style. Similarly, Balanchine (who translated his traditional ballet training through the Constructivist work of his mentor Kas'yan Goleizovsky) codified "American ballet."

A series of related recitals and lectures will take place in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.


Press Release

Exhibition Brochure (PDF)