In the opera "War and Peace" Prokofiev made an attempt to create its most important historical parallel in the work of art in the period of the Second World War or the Great Patriotic War 1941-45. For his monumental epic the composer demanded the record-breaking number of over sixty stage actors. It is an ambitious experiment of an episodic Tolstoy adaptation, which itself grew out of elementary consternation, precisely that of the outbreak of war in 1941 (from the Russian point of view). In his 1991 Petersburg production of War and Peace, which was also shown at the Opéra Bastille in Paris and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Graham Vick relies on the effect of stylized stage spaces that only hint at the respective setting of the action. A sophisticated lighting design and the play with unadorned but highly variable wall and floor elements are highly suggestive. On the whole, the British director has presented a production that is unusually innovative for the traditional stage aesthetics of the Mariinsky Theater. That it represents a valuable impulse for the reception history of "War and Peace" is beyond question.

• Artists: Alexander Gergalov, Elena Prokina, Gegam Grigorian, Olga Borodina, Vassily Gerelo, Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev