I figli del popolo lavoratore secondo Sergej Prokof'ev: la drammaturgia musicale di Semën Kotko

Discusses the genesis of the opera Semën Kotko written by Prokof'ev in 1939 as an attempt to create his first soviet opera, politically correct, based on a libretto taken from Valentin Kataev's novel I am a Son of the Working People. The tale of revolution and war in a small Ukrainian village became a celebration of the Socialist Realism, through a score influenced both by the ideas of Vsevolod Mejerchol'd, that planned to direct the performance before being arrested, and by the experience with the cinema made by the composer in 1938, when he collaborated with Sergej Ejzenštejn writing the soundtrack of the movie Aleksander Nevskij. The music analysis focuses the articulation of the opera in several short scenes, as in a screenplay, and the constant attempt to energize and make more dynamic the theatrical action. The essay explores also the different modes of singing, related to the different characters, and the use of polyphonic concertato that allows to overlap and to compact different scenes.