Peter and the wolf

Peter and the Wolf (Russian: Petya i volk, Петя и волк) is a composition symphony by Sergei Prokofiev (Op. 67) written in 1936. Prokofiev's work is a story for children, with music and text adapted by him, with a narrator accompanied by the orchestra.

History

In 1935, Natalya Sats and the Moscow Central Children's Theater commissioned Sergei Prokofiev to produce a new musical symphony for children. An attempt was made to cultivate a taste for music in children from the earliest years of school. Intrigued by the invitation, Prokofiev completed Peter and the Wolf in four days. The premiere took place on May 2, 1936., and its reception was unfavorable. In the author's own words, "...[the attendance] was poor and failed to attract much attention."

Symphony Instrumentation

Peter and the Wolf is written for a flute, an oboe, a clarinet in A, a bassoon, three horns in E, a timpani and strings for the allegory of the main characters, and a trumpet accompaniment in B flat, trombone, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, castanets, snare, and bass drum in the orchestration.

Each character in the story is assigned an instrument and a musical theme:

• Peter: string instruments: violin, violas, cello and bass
• Grandpa: fagot
• Bird: Traverse flute
• Duck or goose: oboe
• Cat: clarinet
• The Wolf: 3 Cooks
• Hunters: timbals and pump.

Plot

Peter, a young Soviet pioneer, lives with his grandfather, who is a lumberjack, in a house in a clearing in the woods. One day Pedro leaves the house, leaving the garden door open, and makes friends with a bird. A duck sees the open door and decides to go swimming in the nearby pond. The bird and the duck start arguing, "What kind of bird are you that can't fly?", to which the duck replies, "What kind of bird are you that can't swim?" Then Pedro's cat sneaks out trying to catch the birds and Pedro advises them to be safe, the bird flies to a tree and the duck swims to the center of the pond.

Then the grandfather arrives and scolds Pedro for being in the meadow, and tells him that the forest wolf could catch him outside. Pedro responds by saying that he is not afraid, that he is very brave and can catch the wolf. Grandpa puts him in the house by the ear and closes the door. Shortly after, a huge wolf does appear, the cat takes refuge in a tree, but the wolf catches the duck and eats it. Pedro witnesses the scene looking through a slot in the door.

Peter hooks onto a rope and jumps over the garden wall, climbing up a tree branch. He asks the bird to fly around the wolf to distract it, while he prepares a slipknot from the branch, lowers the rope and manages to tie the wolf by the tail. The wolf tries to get free but Pedro pulls with all his might and manages to tie the rope to the tree. In this three hunters who had been tracking the wolf arrive and prepare to shoot him. But Pedro convinces them to help him take him to the zoo alive. And they all embark on a triumphant parade to the zoo, happily celebrating the end of terror. At the end you can even hear the duck inside the wolf's belly because he had swallowed it without biting it.

Adaptations of the play

Walt Disney, 1946

Walt Disney produced an animated version of this work in 1946, with Sterling Holloway as narrator. It premiered as a fragment of Música maestro, which would be reissued the following year accompanying Fantasia (a short film before the film), and which was later released in the 1990s in separate video. This version makes several changes from the original:

• When the characters appear, the pets have names: "Sasha" the bird, "Sonia" the duck and "Ivan" the cat.
• When starting the cartoon movie Pedro and his friends already know that there is a wolf nearby, and they are preparing for their capture.
• The final hunters also have names: "Misha", "Yasha" and "Demetrius, the Great."
• Peter dreams up with the hunt and capture of the wolf, and leaves the garden with a wooden toy shotgun to hunt the wolf.
• The end of the original is completely changed, to make it less traumatic for the infantile public, the narrator announces that the wolf did not eat the duck. You see the wolf chasing the duck to the inside of a trunk. The wolf attacks out of the viewer's sight, and returns to the scene with the mouth full of feathers and reclaiming, so Peter, the cat and the bird assume he ate the duck. After the capture of the wolf, the bird gets sad by the duck, and at that time the duck leaves the trunk and meets happy.

Russia, 1958

The Russian animation studio Soyuzmultfilm produced a version of the play in 1958 as a short film, also called Peter and the Wolf. It is made with puppets in frame animation. It was directed by Anatoly Karanovich and narrated by I. Medvedyeva. This version makes the following changes to the story:

• At first the bird sees the wolf in the woods and warns Peter's grandfather, who will seek the hunters and tells Peter to stay in the fenced yard.
• The cat by failing to catch the bird and duck goes into the woods to ask for help from the wolf.
• When the wolf persecutes the duck, Peter saves him by holding him and getting home, leaving the cat with the wolf out.
• Then the wolf that is not very melindrous eats the cat.

This version was not released outside the Soviet bloc.

Anglo-Polish co-production, 2006

In 2006 Suzie Templeton directed with producer Hugh Welchman another stop-motion animation adaptation, Peter and the Wolf. It stands out for totally lacking dialogues and narration. The soundtrack was performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the orchestra accompanied its premiere live at the Royal Albert Hall. This film won the Crystal of Annecy award and the audience award at the International Festival 2007 Annecy Animated Film Award, and also won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. This version makes more changes from Prokofiev's original story than the previous ones:

• Peter clashes with one of the “huggers” (those teens in this story) that throws him into the trash bin and points him to his rifle to scare him. The second hunter looks without intervening (creating thus immediately enlivening both hunters/maths).
• The bird has a broken wing so it can't fly well and use Peter's balloon to stay in the air.
• After Peter has captured the wolf with a net, the hunter finds him with his telescopic sight by chance, but the second hunter beats him down and errs the shot.
• They take the wolf to the town in a car and Pedro's grandfather tries to sell it. The hunter goes where the wolf is and points him in with the rifle to intimidate the animal as he had done at first with Peter. Then Peter throws the net and gets trapped.
• Before Grandpa has done the Pedro business, let the wolf go after looking into his eyes. Then they both walk together opening their way between the atonite crowd and then the wolf runs free in the direction of the moonlit forest.