Article: double play; Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Kirov Opera / Valery Gergiev (Philips 446-078-2; two discs)

Anyone who saw David Freeman's Kirov staging when it visited Covent Garden will remember above all how chillingly it made flesh of the heroine Renata's obsessive imaginings. In the gyrating torsos of the Mariinsky Acrobatic Troupe, Freeman unlocked a physical response to Prokofiev's amazing score - white devils in a black mass of enticement and retribution. This is the medieval world as Renata experiences it: a cruel, unforgiving place where ignorance and suspicion breed contempt and non-conformity is for heretics (Prokofiev will have identified with that analogy).

The Fiery Angel is about one girl becoming a woman in a world of men. Renata's "angel" is the embodiment of her desires. She ...

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