FANTASY OF THE "FIRE BIRD"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 68, 11 October 1940, Page 11

FANTASY OF THE "FIRE BIRD"

14 Carat Apples On Silver Trees

STRAVINSKY’S "Fire Bird," which 3YA will broadcast on Friday, October 18, is the old story of an ogre keeping princes and princesses in uncomfortable captivity until they are rescued by the discovery of the magic charm; but it is told with a new es in Stravinsky’s music, Music, dance, and pantomime tell the story of the visit of Prince Ivan to the castle of the malevolent King Kastchei. In the grounds he encounters the Fire Bird, a creature of wonderful goldenshining plumage. He grasps her, but she pleads with him to release her. He does so, and in gratitude, she gives him one of her golden feathers. This feather, it appears, is a charm against the evil spells of Kastchei. Ivan meets twelve beautiful maidens in the grounds of the castle, and falls in: love with a thirteenth, more beautiful even than all the others. He watches them playing, as the Fire Bird had been play-

ing, with the 14-carat apples growing golden on a silver tree. They warn him that Kastchei likes to turn all strangers he encounters into stone. Undaunted, Ivan throws open the gates of the castle. Out swarms a horrid crew of slaves, buffoons, soldiers and freaks: Kikimoras, Bolibochki,. and two-headed monsters, Finally comes Kastchei himself. He tries to put his spell on Ivan; but the golden feather renders it ineffective. The Fire Bird comes to tell Ivan that the power of the ogre would be quite broken if he smashed an egg which Kastchei preserves in a certain casket. Ivan finds the casket, breaks the egg, brings all thé people of stone back to life, and goes to claim his beautiful Number 13. All the moods of this fantasy, grave, gay, fearful, grotesque, and sentimental, are in Stravinsky’s music. Listeners wiil not see the picture created by Fokine and Diaghileff for the first performance of the ballet; but the colourful music should give them a very good idea of it.