When Is It OK to Alter a Work of Genius?

Conductor Elliot Moore. Photo credit: Maestro

When is it okay to alter a work of genius? In 1886, Camille Saint-Saëns composed his work Carnival of the Animals, but it was only in the late 1940s that Ogden Nash's poetry was added to help young audiences conjure up a more vivid picture of the music. In 1844, Alexander Dumas adapted E. T. A. Hoffman's dark story of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King into something lighter and more family-friendly. When Tchaikovsky composed his Ballet using Dumas's version, it was met with criticism for not being faithful to Hoffman's story. 

Following a recent set of performances that I led of Prokofiev's classic Peter and the Wolf, I have been asking myself about the possibility of updating Prokofiev's text. Without getting into the actual plot, it is worth saying that the story reflects Soviet Pioneer virtues from the 1930s, the somewhat dated ideal of Man taming Nature, and the stubbornness of the older "un-Bolshevik" generation of the time. While these are important concepts as it relates to Russian history, does such a story resonate with today's American children coming to the symphony, many of them for the first time, and sadly for some of those children, perhaps the only time? 

Because this may be the only time that a child comes to a live symphonic performance, I feel a tremendous responsibility to create the space to inspire every child by presenting compelling and relevant programming. It is my sincere hope that their experience in the concert hall will be the discovery of the joy that comes from having music in their life. That said, a little voice inside my head was telling me that we may have missed our mark when, following our final performance of Peter and the Wolf, a little girl came up to me at the end, tears streaming down her cheeks, asking me if the duck, who had been swallowed whole by the wolf, was doomed for death. While her question did concern me, this wasn't the only aspect that gave me pause — I was surprised that some of the lighter parts of the narrative fell a bit flat with our young audience, and I couldn't help but think that the lack of a female character in the plot was outdated.

While the musical purest in me says: Stick to the original!!! The part of me that is responsible for inspiring future generations of music lovers says: Do whatever it takes to resonate with young audience members! For such an incredible piece of music, which so brilliantly demonstrates the different instruments of the orchestra to young audience members, when do we say that, by refreshing the narrative to resonate with the experience of today's youth, we gain more than we lose? When is it okay to alter a work of genius, and would changing Prokofiev's text help today's orchestras create a brighter future for tomorrow's classical music audiences?