War & Peace

Opera in thirteen scenes, in two parts, in Russian with Hungarian and English surtitles

Prokofiev was inspired to compose a musical drama based on Leo Tolstoy’s colossal historical novel War and Peace by the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany. The Peace in the first half of the opera is a series of Prokofiev’s most beautiful and intimate tableaus, and it forms a strong contrast with the tsarist (or Soviet) scenes of the second, War part. Prokofiev paints a masterful picture of the fight of the masses and the individual characters in it. He interweaves the plot into a gigantic tale of love and death. The opera featuring 72 characters is adapted and produced by Catalan director Calixto in co-production with the Geneva Grand Théâtre.