Banned Soviet music makes London return

A forgotten film score written by the legendary Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev is being brought to life after some 70 years in archives. A ballet adaptation of the music opens on Wednesday in London's Covent Garden.

The Prokofiev pieces were composed in 1936 for a film that never made it to the screen.

Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup stumbled onto the score and decided to make a modern adaptation.

He was helped by British composer Michael Berkeley, who turned 24 musical fragments from Prokofiev into a 30-minute ballet.

“What Prokofiev does wonderfully – and it's in this score too – is that it's both a kind of neo-classical economy and finesse as well as kind of a lifeblood running through it. So the music has that double edged par: it's beautifully crafted, but is also very powerful,” Berkeley says.

Although the score was for a film based on Pushkin's work, Brandstrup used another Russian literary giant for inspiration. The ballet's storyline is drawn from “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.