Musical Fables

Stéphane Denève, conductor
Ken Page, narrator

Albert Roussel The Spider’s Feast
Francis Poulenc Les Animaux modèles  
Sergei Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf

• This concert takes place at Stifel Theatre.
• Let us do the driving! Reserve your seat on the Symphony Shuttle from Plaza Frontenac or St. Louis Community College – Forest Park. Shuttle tickets are $15 per passenger and depart 75 minutes prior to the concert.
• This concert can be purchased as part of the Young Friends membership.

A feast for the eyes and ears. French animator Grégoire Pont conjures an entire world before our eyes. In Albert Roussel’s The Spider’s Feast, Pont’s sketches dance on screen while the SLSO plays. Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf is accompanied by the Academy Award-winning short film, and the SLSO captures the energy of Francis Poulenc’s colorful musical fables, Les Animaux modèles.

A few things to know: 

• Grégoire Pont aims to make classical music more accessible. “My wish is to use animation as a living thing,” says Pont. “With music and motion playing together, sound is brought to life, particularly for younger audiences.” The Spider’s Feast is the first collaboration between the SLSO and award-winning French animator.
• Stéphane Denève does not believe that “some pieces are for adults, and some pieces are for children. Great art has the power to speak to all parts of our life.” He adores Peter and the Wolf. “I conducted it first at the age of fourteen,” Stéphane says. “The piece is very special to me.”
• The 2006 stop-motion animation Peter and the Wolf film was a British-Norwegian-Polish co-production, directed by Suzie Templeton. The film has no narrator but relies on music and images to tell the story. Classic FM Magazine called it “a masterpiece.”
• The Spider’s Feast by French composer Albert Roussel began life as a ballet. It explores a garden’s cycle of life: insects are trapped, then a spider prepares to eat them before being stopped by a praying mantis. A funeral procession ends the work.