Lina and Serge: The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev was a biography of Lina Prokofiev, wife of composer Sergei Prokofiev, written by Simon Morrison and first published in the US during March 2013. [1] The book was published in the UK the same month under the title The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev: the Story of Lina and Sergei Prokofiev. [2]
Stephen Walsh, writing in The Guardian , commented that "Morrison tells a good story, without excess or indulgence, and with touching empathy for his heroine." [2]
The book was featured as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week during March 2013. [3]
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high standing in pop culture, his books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. King has published 64 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections.
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and Peter and the Wolf. Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas.
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Robbie Coltrane, and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind.
Simon Robert Armitage is an English poet, playwright and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.
Sir Simon Michael Schama is an English historian specialising in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, New York.
Martin Sixsmith is a British author and radio/television presenter, primarily working for the BBC. He has also worked as an adviser to the Labour government and to the BBC television comedy series The Thick of It. Sixsmith's book, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, was the basis for the 2013 film Philomena, in which Sixsmith is played by Steve Coogan. His son is the 5'10" journalist and commentator Ben Sixsmith.
Steven Isserlis is a British cellist. He has led a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, author and broadcaster. Acclaimed for his profound musicianship, he is also noted for his diverse repertoire, command of phrasing, and distinctive sound which is deployed with his use of gut strings.
David Edward Williams, known professionally as David Walliams, is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is best known for his work with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series Little Britain (2003–2007) and Come Fly With Me (2010–2011). Since 2012, Walliams has been a judge on the television talent show competition Britain's Got Talent on ITV. He is also a writer of children's books, having sold more than 37 million copies worldwide.
Love and Death is a 1975 American comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. It is a satire on Russian literature starring Allen and Diane Keaton as Boris and Sonja, Russians living during the Napoleonic Era who engage in mock-serious philosophical debates. Allen considered it the funniest film he had made up until that point.
The Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor, Op. 111, by Sergei Prokofiev was completed and premiered in 1947. According to Simon Morrison, its premiere was the "last unhampered, unmediated success" the composer would ever experience.
Zdravitsa, Op. 85, is a cantata written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1939 to celebrate Stalin's 60th birthday. Its title is sometimes translated as Hail to Stalin in English. A performance lasts around thirteen minutes.
Our Tune is a long-standing feature/segment on British radio presented by broadcaster Simon Bates. Having begun by at least 1979 it was originally part of his mid-morning show on BBC Radio 1, where it aired daily throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The feature has more recently been heard on Smooth Radio, where Bates presented the Breakfast Show from 2011 to 2014. An edition of Our Tune typically features a personal story submitted by a listener together with a song that has significance to the person or situation. Many of these stories, which are read out over Nino Rota's Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet have a tragic narrative such as illness or death, although not all end on such an unhappy note.
Cheryl Ann Tweedy is an English singer and television personality. Born and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, she rose to fame in late 2002 upon winning a place in Girls Aloud, a girl group created through ITV's Popstars: The Rivals. While still in the group, she began a solo career in April 2009, and between then and 2014, she released four studio albums – 3 Words (2009), Messy Little Raindrops (2010), A Million Lights (2012) and Only Human (2014). Collectively, the albums included ten singles, five of which – "Fight for This Love", "Promise This", "Call My Name", "Crazy Stupid Love" and "I Don't Care" – reached the top position on the UK Singles Chart. Cheryl was the first British female solo artist to have five number-one singles in the UK, and she held the record for the British female solo artist with the most UK number-one singles until Jess Glynne overtook her in 2018.
Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé music was originally written to accompany the film of the same name, produced by the Belgoskino film studios in Leningrad in 1933–34 and released in March 1934. It was Prokofiev's first attempt at film music, and his first commission.
Simon Morrison is a scholar and writer specializing in 20th-century music, particularly Russian, Soviet, and French music, with special interests in dance, cinema, aesthetics, and historically informed performance based on primary sources.
Boris Yevseyevich Gusman (1892–1944) was a Soviet author, screenplay writer, theater director, and columnist for Pravda. As deputy director for the Bolshoi Theatre and later director of the Soviet Radio Committee Arts Division, Gusman played an important role in promoting Sergei Prokofiev's music in the USSR and internationally. Gusman was arrested during the Great Purges of the late 1930s, and died in a labor camp in 1944. His son Israel Borisovich Gusman would later become a prominent musical conductor.
Lina Ivanovna Prokofieva, born Carolina Codina Nemísskaia, was a Spanish singer and the first wife of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. They married in 1923. Despite misgivings about her husband's decision to move to the Soviet Union, she settled there with him in 1936. They separated in 1941. In 1948, their marriage was ruled null and void, a verdict that was upheld in 1958 by the Supreme Court of the USSR. Her stage name was Lina Llubera.
Mariya-Cecilia Abramovna Mendelson-Prokofieva, typically referred to as Mira Mendelson, was a Russian poet, writer, and translator who was the second wife of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. She was the co-librettist of her husband's operas Betrothal in a Monastery, The Story of a Real Man, and War and Peace, as well as the ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower.
On Guard for Peace, also translated as On Guard of Peace, Op. 124 is an oratorio by Sergei Prokofiev scored for narrators, mezzo-soprano, boy soprano, boys choir, mixed choir, and symphony orchestra. Each of its ten movements sets texts by Samuil Marshak, who had collaborated previously with the composer in the work Winter Bonfire, Op. 122.