Featured performance, United Solo Festival 7pm Friday Nov 8 2024
Theatre Row, 410 42nd Street, NY
Bookings unitedsolo.org
Lina Prokofiev: cosmopolitan, glamorous, polyglot, singer, Gulag prisoner. Her extraordinary life mirrors the 20th century, from its greatest achievements and progress to the worst degradations of totalitarianism. This is a story of desire and defiance, told through her memories of songs she performed, and set against the spectre of her celebrity composer husband whose only allegiance was to his music.
LIna was born in Madrid, to a Spanish father and Russian mother. Lina and Sergei met in New York, married in Germany, lived for many years in Paris and travelled the world performing.
Like many partners of famous men, Lina’s life and ambitions took second place to his. Faye Bendrups brings Lina to life, using many of her own words and featuring excerpts from some of her favourite concert repertoire, in 8 different languages. Fragments of Prokofiev’s music provide a simple sonic backdrop, played by the Argentine writer/musician Guillermo Anad on viola.
This story of Lina is both terribly sad and uplifting. An aspiring opera singer, Lina spoke more than 6 languages fluently, was a glamorous and witty raconteur. When Prokofiev was persuaded to return to the USSR, her life changed forever and in 1948 she was sentenced to 20 years hard labour in the Gulag for being a foreign spy. But she never gave up: “Life is fabulous! If you never stop fighting”.
Lina’s story is still repeated today; people accused of fabricated charges, taken away, detained, disappeared, sent to ‘re-education camps’. This is a story that needs to be told and will appeal to anyone who is interested in human rights, enduring love stories, classical music, women’s narratives, 20th century and Russian history.