I really wanted to be able to recommend this disc. After all, it seems like such a worthy undertaking, simply oozing good intentions. All three celebrity narrators (never mind what business they have being on the same disc) are donating their efforts in support of three worthy causes. Well, perhaps Gorbachev’s silly-sounding Green Cross organization is an exception. It purportedly “works toward a sustainable future by fostering harmony between man and the environment”, whatever that means, but both the Russian National Orchestra’s children’s outreach program “The Magic of Music” and the International Aids Trust sound respectable enough. And the prospect of a “sequel” to Peter and the Wolf certainly sounds interesting. Unfortunately the reality is little short of disastrous.
First, consider the programming. Gorbachev piously introduces each work in Russian, alternating with a sentence by sentence English translation. Now even though he keeps it short, what child cares about such nonsense, particularly in this format? Next comes Peter and the Wolf, in which Sophia Loren makes about the worst narrator imaginable. Her diction sounds stilted; her efforts at characterization amount to little more than an odd cackle or two in an attempt to convey good-natured humor; and her voice has a worn, scratchy quality as if she were suffering from a cold or flu. There are moments where her enunciation almost makes the words unintelligible (parts of the initial exchange between the bird and the duck, for example). Add to this some extremely annoying and totally unnecessary birdsong effects (even more irritating coming from the rear speakers on SACD), throw in Kent Nagano’s efficient but characterless conducting, and the result is simply awful.
But it gets worse. In the sequel, Wolf Tracks, no-name (and evidently no-talent) French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus sets to utterly forgettable third-rate movie music a story so sanctimonious that it’s a wonder Bill Clinton was able to spit out the text. Peter has grown up and now has a grandson named Peter, who wants to go catch a wolf himself, just like Grandpa once did. Tsk, tsk, admonishes Grandpa, commenting in passing on the unwisdom of his habit of pipe smoking (mustn’t give the kiddies the wrong impression). Why would you want to disturb such a noble creature, whose habitat has already been reduced by the depredations of mankind? “Do you know what the word ‘habitat’ means, Peter?” he asks. And that’s just in the opening minute. It’s got to be the most clumsy, heavy-handed, pretentious, boring excuse for a story that I have ever heard, and I can’t imagine any child (or adult) tolerating it for more than 90 seconds. And I’ve given money to save wolves. Force your child to listen to this drivel and I wouldn’t be surprised if the neighbors called Social Services.
Worse still, heard after Peter and the Wolf, it stands as an insult to Prokofiev, who never would have believed that his little tale about a big bad wolf that gets caught and taken to the zoo (no one gets hurt–even the duck survives in the wolf’s tummy, you will recall) would in some way contribute to the extinction of the species and the wholesale felling of forests to make way for new golf courses. Prokofiev was content merely to please his audience and leave the preaching to others. I mean, what’s next? Imagine the far-right version of this foolishness: Peter pretending to be a Texas Ranger and capturing with his toy pistol the “Wolf Pack”, a gang of tree-hugging anti-development eco-terrorists running around blowing up new condominium construction outside San Antonio. Where does it end?
Adding insult to injury, there’s also the disc’s very short playing time. I’m reminded of the story of the elderly Jewish couple sitting in a restaurant: the husband asks his wife, “How’s the food?” “Awful!” she replies. “I agree,” he says. “And such small portions!” It truly pains me not to be able to recommend this disc, but the whole project has been so badly conceived and executed, so freighted with irrelevant and inartistic extra-musical baggage, and it strikes me as so utterly unappealing that I really have no choice. Anyone interested in any of the above charities will find their time and money better spent simply by making a direct contribution, and this I can and do recommend wholeheartedly. Where purely ideological considerations (and it doesn’t matter of what type) take precedence over artistic ones, music always will be the loser. That’s certainly the case here, big time.
