Jeu de cartes - A Card Game

Name: Jeu de cartes - A Card Game
Brand: Schott Music
SKU: 156226
Availability: InStock

Ballet in three deals / Suite

Stage action devised by the composer in collaboration with M. Malayev

Edition: Performance material

Series: Jeu de cartes

Product Type

Hire Order

Product Details

Description

They play for high stakes in Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Jeu de cartes, written for the first Stravinsky Festival mounted by George Balanchine for the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1937. Stravinsky, himself a keen poker player, invented an abstract drama for the various card ‘characters’, full of deceit and intrigue, which unfolds almost immediately on the card table as a ‘ballet in three deals’. At the start of each deal, the cards are shuffled in an ironic gesture, with the opposing hands played against each other in constantly changing combinations. The malicious joker interferes with the flow of the game several times by demonstrating his power, but can ultimately be defeated by a royal flush in hearts.

There is a lot of bluffing in this game, even with regard to the music: Stravinsky parodies and combines alienated fragments from Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Johann Strauss’ Fledermaus or musical allusions to Beethoven, Ravel and Tchaikovsky.

Orchestral Cast

2 (2. auch Picc.) · 2 (2. auch Engl. Hr.) · 2 · 2 - 4 · 2 · 3 · 1 - P. S. (gr. Tr.) - Str. (12 · 10 · 8 · 6 · 6)

Cast

(Die Karten eines Pokerspiels): 7 Tänzer - 8 Tänzerinnen

More Information

Title:

Jeu de cartes - A Card Game

Ballet in three deals / Suite

Stage action devised by the composer in collaboration with M. Malayev

Les mouvements scéniques réalisés par l'auteur en collaboration avec M. Malaïeff

Edition:

Performance material

Publisher/Label:

Schott Music

Year of composition:

1936

Duration:

23 ′0 ′′

World Premiere:

April 27, 1937 · New York, NY (USA)
Metropolitan Opera
Conductor: Igor Strawinsky
Set design: Irene Sharaff · Choreography: George Balanchine · American Ballet
(scenic) (first scenic performance)

January 14, 1938 · Philadelphia, PA (USA)
Conductor: Eugene Ormandy · The Philadelphia Orchestra

(concert) (world première of the suite)

Series:

Jeu de cartes

Keywords:

#ballet #card game #the barber of seville #cards #bat #poker