Natalya Sats Musical Theater - Peter and The Wolf

Peter and The Wolf

In 1936, Natalya Sats asked Sergei Prokofiev to write a work that would teach orchestral instruments to children and fit the "musical tastes in children from the first years of school." The composer, who had recently returned to Russia after 13 years abroad, wrote his symphonic fairy tale in a couple of weeks.

The first performance of Peter and the Wolf was on May 2, 1936; Prokofiev later wrote that the debut was "inauspicious at best" and the work "failed to attract much attention."

Yet although it is generally not considered among Prokofiev's greatest compositions, it has become one of the most frequently recorded classical work. To date there have been more than 400 different recordings in more than a dozen languages.

Natalya Sats first narrated Peter and the Wolf in 1936. She would go on to give more than 300 performances. The first time she narrated it in English was in Albany, New York as part of a 1986 cultural exchange of theater troupes.

Eleanor Roosevelt, David Bowie, Sir Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, Zero Mostel, and Boris Karloff have all recorded narrations of Peter and the Wolf.