Russia's Sergei Prokofiev had been told months ago by the party's Central Committee how to write music. But had he really listened?
His new opera, performed in Leningrad, seemed patriotic enough at first glance: a Soviet pilot loses both feet in a crash, manages to fly again to prove his devotion to Stalin and the motherland. What more could a composer do? A good deal more, apparently, if he was to satisfy the music-loving Central Committee. Said Culture and Life: Prokofiev's music for the Tale of a Real Person was "in screaming contradiction with...
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