Sting/COE/Abbado - Prokofiev - Peter And The Wolf (DVD)

Introduction:

Sometimes the strangest and most unexpected of combinations can work brilliantly together, so I was really intrigued to see that renowned Italian maestro Claudio Abbado had insisted that his DVD of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" should use Spitting Image puppets!

Somehow it seemed a rather improbable line-up: On one side as a supreme representative of "high culture", we have Claudio ...
...recordings and concerts of Mahler, Mozart and Verdi to pick just a few highlighted composers from his long and illustrious career. At the other end of the cultural spectrum we have the Spitting Image team who are best known for their 80's TV series featuring bitingly satirical latex puppet portrayals of anyone famous (and infamous) from the Queen Mum (complete with Brummie accent and fondness for gin...) to a manic Margaret Thatcher and her errant ... more

Introduction:

Sometimes the strangest and most unexpected of combinations can work brilliantly together, so I was really intrigued to see that renowned Italian maestro Claudio Abbado had insisted that his DVD of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" should use Spitting Image puppets!

Somehow it seemed a rather improbable line-up: On one side as a supreme representative of "high culture", we have Claudio with his intense music-making and lofty interpretative ideas, conducting acclaimed recordings and concerts of Mahler, Mozart and Verdi to pick just a few highlighted composers from his long and illustrious career. At the other end of the cultural spectrum we have the Spitting Image team who are best known for their 80's TV series featuring bitingly satirical latex puppet portrayals of anyone famous (and infamous) from the Queen Mum (complete with Brummie accent and fondness for gin...) to a manic Margaret Thatcher and her errant son Mark, not to mention such unforgettable musical cultural gems as the Chicken Song:

Quote: Hold a chicken in the air, stick a deck-chair up your nose
Buy a Jumbo-Jet, and then bury all your clothes
Paint your left knee green, then extract your wisdom teeth
Form a string quartet, and pretend your name is Keith.

Skin yourself alive, learn to speak araphahoe
Climb inside a dog, and behead an Eskimo
Eat a Renault 4, wear salami in your ears
Casserole your gran, dis-embowel yourself with spears."

.... remember that one? Someone stop me singing, please... we should have entered this into Eurovision...

Where was I? "Hold a chicken..." Sorry. Deep breath. Yes: Throw rock star legend Sting, veteran actor Roy Hudd, the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Europe, members of experimental theatre group " Théâtre de Complicité" and artists from Zippo's Circus into the mix and you couldn't really wish for a more diverse cast of participants on a classical music DVD.

Concept:

As explained in some helpful DVD liner notes by the producer Christopher Swann, after Abbado said that he wanted to use the Spitting Image puppets, one major issue arose, in that it would be incredibly expensive to do this just for Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" since that piece is only about 25 minutes long. So there had to be a concept which would fill a DVD and make the best use of the expenditure on the puppets and production. The plan was made to dramatise several Prokofiev pieces which Claudio Abbado had previously recorded on the DVD to make a kind of dramatic whole - to devise a "Prokofiev Fantasy".

Music/Dramatic action:

The basic idea and storyline behind the DVD is that Roy Hudd (who incidentally, acts wonderfully well in this...) as Serge Prokofiev would be seen engrossed in his favourite game of chess, when he hears his March in B flat played in the background. Intrigued he'd be enticed into the opera house where a second-rate theatre company which is putting on a performance of "Peter and the Wolf." He enters backstage and bribes the actor playing the role of Grandfather to let him take his part. It is a fun start to the DVD as we see the REAL Claudio Abbado cleverly morph into his Spitting Image - um - spitting image and battle to take over the conducting of the March from 3 other naughty misbehaving conductors who look remarkably like Maestri Zubin Mehta, Herbert von Karajan and Seiji Ozawa - it is beautifully done and great fun as we see the theatre stage being made ready for the performance, with the Wolf skulking around in his dressing room, the actors and puppets "warming up" and so on...

The film then segues directly into the performance of "Peter and the Wolf" which has a puppet of Sting as the narrator accompanied by a very expressive Spitting Image cat who almost managed to upstage him at times! Sting does a fantastic job of narrating the different voices of the story and there is a nice contrast between seeing the puppets representing the various characters such as the bird, duck (who happens to be drunk... with a bottle of champers under his wing) and Wolf interchanging with actors dressed as the characters and playing the actual instruments which represent them - i.e. oboe for the duck, bassoon for Grandfather, horns for the Hunters etc. It is beautifully done with some incredibly effective use of CGI special effects as well as the actual Spitting Image puppets. Peter himself is played by a personable young lad (not a puppet) and in a typically cynical Spitting Image touch the 4 Hunters are very similar to the Marx Brothers... just one of numerous visual gags for us adults.

As most people know the story is pretty simple, each character is represented by different instruments in the orchestra and introduced, then we hear the story as Peter goes exploring in the forest and meets the bird, duck, cat etc. We also see other Spitting Image wildlife such as some rather rambunctious rabbits and squirrels, there's such a lot of visual extras to look out for in the background as well as to hear the music itself. We occasionally see the puppet Abbado conducting or in a brilliant little touch pan onto a "Royal Box" in the opera house full of Spitting Image dignitaries such as the Queen, Prince Philip and others... I won't spoil the surprises by saying who else is to be spotted!

The cat is chased up the tree by the Wolf (who is realistic, but not too scary) and then of course he finds a much easier prey in the Duck, who gets swallowed whole. There's a great scene of the Duck inside the Wolf's stomach with all sorts of other bits and bobs including what looks very suspiciously like Little Red Riding Hood's clothes...
Eventually the Wolf is caught and the entourage sets off to the zoo - which in this case turns out to be the circus... hence the circus stars. There's a bit of acrobatics and the unfortunate Wolf is taunted a bit during the triumphant parade - (I always felt sorry for the Wolf...) while the Duck sits forlornly inside his tummy smoking a cigarette! There are loads of little visual gags and you need a few viewings to pick them all up. It would definitely appeal to children of all ages.

After the end of Peter and the Wolf we come to what is probably the weakest part of the DVD, where Peter and the Grandfather are alone in the cottage in the middle of winter (Grandfather is really Prokofiev... are you lost yet?) Grandfather/Prokofiev is reminiscing on his past life to the accompaniment of Prokofiev's "Overture on Hebrew Themes" and first thinks of his departed wife (cue ballet pas de deux in the snow, yawn) then of his long-gone musician friends from Russia who appear as ghostly figures outside the cottage. The Overture was composed in the USA when Prokofiev was in exile and missed his native Russia, which I guess was the reasoning behind this visual interpretation. It seems a little out of place amongst the general jovial nature of the rest of the DVD and perhaps might not be appreciated so much by younger viewers. There are some distractions with the ominous appearance of the Wolf (signifying Communist Russia I suspect...) and other animals but for me it doesn't really work, even though it is undoubtedly beautifully done visually and musically.

This piece ends with Grandfather/Prokofiev standing sadly in the snow, Peter runs off into the forest.

So the final music starts - Prokofiev's "Classical Symphony". Peter finds a castle which seems to signify some kind of musical heaven and to his delight he encounters the ghosts of the classical composers which Prokofiev was inspired and musically provoked by when writing this symphony - guys such as Mozart, Haydn, Wagner and others... everyone - from actors to musicians and even Claudio himself gets involved in some merry pranks - lots of funny visual gags which will appeal to all and which I won't give away here and in the end Prokofiev himself is invited to join the illustrious band of classical composers as one of them, the music reverts to the March that we started off with and the film set is dismantled before our very eyes, everyone takes a flamboyant bow from Wolf to Maestro and we realise that it was all a dream after all...!

So how was it for me?

I desperately, desperately wanted to love this DVD to bits and give it 5 stars. There is so much which is totally, utterly brilliant - such as Sting's wonderfully vivid narration and characterisations aided and abetted by his frenetic feline friend. There are loads of cool visual gags that you have to have a keen eye to spot and which make it a DVD worth watching again and again. The "Peter and the Wolf" part of the DVD is done fantastically well, and if it doesn't attract kids to classical music then they deserve to have their Wii machines put in the crusher for being so insensitive to proper culture! With the combination of actors and puppets you get a real theatrical experience which reinforces the initial intention of representation of the characters by instruments and it works very well. Absolutely first class, definitely something for any music teacher wanting to liven up a lesson with a little fun and laughs.

With Maestro Abbado conducting there can be no complaints about the high quality of the music-making and the sound quality of the DVD is impressively vivid even on basic TV equipment, and even better on a good system.

But, but, but - after "Peter and the Wolf" finishes - there is definitely a dramatic slump at that point and I fear that many younger viewers would lose interest in that 8 minute section or so. The Classical Symphony section would probably need a bit of prior priming from teachers or parents to explain the relevance of the composer ghosts to the plot (not to mention identifying them) and once that's been done, I am sure that it would make a fun impression - as again, there are lots of visual gags to look out for and some wonderful comic moments which certainly made me laugh out loud and which I won't spoil by mentioning here.

However, whilst "Peter and the Wolf" would be suitable as a stand-alone for any children who are not going to be scared by a cute growly, slavering but rather mangy looking lupine; I feel that the Classical Symphony would probably be best aimed at an older and more classical music savvy group of kids - i.e. with some teacher preparation. I'd say "Peter" is suitable from 7 upwards and the Classical Symphony maybe from 12 onwards.

So, the concept doesn't TOTALLY work as a unified whole - but there are track numbers in the programme and clearly set out in the well illustrated accompanying brochure, so you can pick out a section to watch as required, which redeems it a bit and I know older children would enjoy having a snigger at "Peter and the Wolf" due to the great visual imagery used.

Also at only 58 minutes long, with no extras apart from a version in Italian featuring renowned actor Robert Benigni, instead of Sting; subtitles in German, French, Spanish and Chinese(!) and a couple of trailers (albeit interesting) for Deutsche Grammophon's Mozart Series - I did feel a little short changed. It was such a great opportunity to use the puppets to perhaps do more to promote the instruments of the orchestra - and it wasn't taken up - which is a huge shame as there is such a lot of potential here. So on balance, I'm going to have to give this 4 stars because it is DEFINITELY worth watching, a MUST for any school music DVD collection or keen musical youngsters, and if you are a grown-up who enjoys Spitting Image, likes classical music and wants a good laugh - then please add it to your DVD rental list. As usual it is worth hunting around for the best bargain price as DVD costs vary so much these days. I got my copy on Tesco.com and used Quidco to cut the price even more. 

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