The Love For Three Oranges

On June 23, watch a live broadcast from the Bolshoi Opera of "The Love for Three Oranges" as part of the festival celebrating the 135th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev – "Prokofiev is Ours!" Musical director and conductor: Valery Gergiev.

This opera, written by the composer when he was thirty, is a metaphor for the love of theatre and the carnivalesque underbelly of the world, for the impossibility of living outside the game. Choosing a commedia dell'arte plot, Prokofiev created an opera about opera itself – about its wonders, its clichés, and its absurdities, all of which were dear to both the audience and the composer himself. Using opera's own means to debunk its "untruth of life" turned out to be the best way to celebrate that very untruth.