Description
The Love for Three Oranges (L’amour des Trois Oranges), Op. 33, is a satirical French-language opera by Sergei Prokofiev. He wrote his own libretto, basing it on the Italian play L’amore delle tre melarance by Carlo Gozzi. Prokofiev himself conducted at the opera’s first staging which took place in Chicago, 1921.
The opera’s plot concerns a young prince who has been cursed by a witch and sent to roam the Earth searching for three oranges with which the witch has caused him to be in love with. Upon finding the three oranges his travelling companion unpeels them. Inside each is a beautiful princess, two of which die instantly but the third, and most beautiful, survives. In a cruel plot twist the princess is then turned into a rat, but is later restored to her human form and she and the Prince live happily ever after together.
The most familiar part of the opera is the distinctly grotesque and dark March. Prokofiev also included the March in a 6-movement orchestral suite taken from the opera and later reused it in his ballet Cinderella. It has featured in numerous commercials, films, and television programmes.
Also available for wind quartet.
