"At the first moment, I was delighted. The next moment, I thought, 'Oh, that can’t be. That’s not a proposition. How can I all of a sudden do that? I know the work, but I’ve never really read it carefully enough to be able to take responsibility of narrating.' And I said immediately, 'Why don’t you ask my son? He did it already several times.' And Michael said, 'No, we want you to do it.' 'Well,' I said, 'I can try, and let me think about it.' And I thought about it and contacted Oleg, and first thing he said to me was, 'You can’t!' I said, 'Why? I have a repertoire of operas.' He said, 'Yes, but how many years ago? Time goes by and people change.' I said, 'Yes, you’re right but still, I have diction, and very few people have good diction.'

And then it was spring, and I was feeling very well, so I thought, 'Oh that’s fine, I do well, I still have time.' But I didn’t realize one thing – that I feel well in the spring but in the fall and winter I don’t fell so well. I have problems.

And I took a long time about getting a good record. I heard one or two, but there were few in English (available in Paris). And I stopped at David Bowie’s version, because I thought he did it very well, very convincingly for children. And as I have grandchildren, I always think of them at that period.”

So I continued, but felt I wasn’t ready and I was very nervous. I had no possibility of listening to the music that is played between. That’s why I laid very much importance on Mr. Foss’s conducting. But he is a very experienced conductor and so he merely showed me when I enter, and I thought, 'My God, I’ll never do it; Oleg has to do it,' you know. But the second rehearsal I knew better, and then the third time Michael and Ms. Elizabeth Wright, a pianist, went over it on piano, and then I really learned the parts that I knew the weakest.

Oh I don’t say I have stage fright. I have no stage fright. But I was not very prepared for the full reading, you know. Indeed, if I had had a couple more full rehearsals, I’d have done it perfectly."

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Madame Prokofieff’s recounts her first meeting with the composer.

"He was in New York, and had just arrived from Russia. And what the papers didn’t write about him! That he was a decadent composer, that he had just come from the wild revolution – I can’t begin to tell you everything they said. It was all one more impressive than the other. And finally my mother got tickets for his first symphony concert, where he played his first piano concerto. They were more classically inclined, and so they were very much surprised when I clapped so vehemently and expressed my enthusiasm and they said, 'Mmm, she must like the young man.' Of course, I was indignant. I was at the age when you cannot stand such remarks. I said, 'Don’t you see how rhythmical it is, how melodious!' And some time after I was invited with my friends to go to a Prokofieff recital. I didn’t want to go backstage because of that remark, you know, but finally my friends took so long I peeped in to see – had they gone? Perhaps I missed them? And I met a smile, and I smiled. And that’s how the first time I really met him."

Lukas Foss, who conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic had this to say:

"It’s much more than a children’s classic. It is so beautiful, and it so individual. I mean to be that simple and yet have your signature in every note! That shows that we’re dealing with a masterwork. It is really incredible. And I’m glad that this is not a children’s concert because Peter and the Wolf is always done at children’s concerts and so as a result people relegate it to children’s music. And so it’s high time that I get to do it in a situation where once can really just listen to the music."

Madame Prokofieff echoed Mr. Foss’s views with enthusiasm.

"Well, I’ve heard it so many times – at the premiere, and with different narrators, and I think you’re quite right, Mr. Foss, in that it’s not for children … It’s really a wonderful piece; there’s so much finesse, so much logic in it, so much humor. It has all of Prokofieff’s qualities and expression in the work."

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