How can we best introduce children to the splendid array of instruments in an orchestra? On an afternoon crowned with cherry blossoms and sparkling waters around Vancouver, it was this pedagogical question that eventually enabled numerous children to crowd into the Vancouver Playhouse to hear Prokofiev’s narrated symphony of “Peter and the Wolf”.
This piece was commissioned by the director of a children’s theatre in Moscow in 1936 as a way to familiarize children with the individual instruments of an orchestra, in a story that they would love. One could argue its mandate has been achieved many times over, as it has become Prokofiev’s most oft-performed work.
At the front of the orchestra, Shannon Chan-Kent from “My Little Pony” unravelled the story in punctuated morsels to the scattering of wriggling creatures in the audience. Chan-Kent embodied the classic maternal storyteller, speaking in well-enunciated tones, and switching to low-pitched character voices and squeaked exclamations with agility.
The music itself covered the archetypal elements of any good children’s book. The daring and sometimes tragic interactions with a vicious wolf, ending in a surprising twist of creativity on the part of Peter were all communicated in encapsulated musical statements, transparent in their meaning.
Did you know that a cat can be a clarinet? A bird, a flute? A duck, an oboe? If you have any doubts, watch this symphony and the orchestra members will surely persuade you.
– Cimarron Ballantyne