Running time: 2 hour 10 minutes


Schedule for The Love for Three Oranges
(opera in four acts, ten scenes).
OPENING OF "The Stars of the White Nights 2007" International Festival 2022

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev
Principal Chorus Master: Andrei Petrenko
Musical Director: Maestro Valery Gergiev
Stage Director: Alain Maratrat
Musical Preparation: Larisa Gergieva
Lighting Designer: Pascal Merat
Set Designer: Daniela Villaret

Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra

Performed in Russian

The Love for Three Oranges is an opera written 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 "L’Amour des Trois Oranges." It has been given the "AT-number" 408 in the Aarne-Thompson classification system.

The most famous piece from the Prokofiev opera is the "March". It is a popular orchestral selection, and was used by CBS in the series The FBI in Peace and War that was broadcast 1944-1958.

The opera has also become Prokofiev’s most widely performed one, having entered the standard repertoire of many opera companies.

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 by Prokofiev and Vera Janacopoulos, based on Vsevolod Meyerhold’s adaptation of Gozzi’s play. The adaptation modernized some of the Commedia dell’Arte influences and also introduced a healthy dose of Surrealism. At its premiere, the opera was sung in French as L’Amour des Trois Oranges.