After having spent nearly 20 years abroad following the 1917 revolution, Prokofiev returned permanently to Russia in the late '30s. Very soon he became entangled in a strange domestic situation involving his then-wife Lena Prokofieva (a Cuban citizen born in Poland while that country was still occupied by the Russian Empire), and poetess Mira Mendelssohn, the daughter of Lazar Kaganovich, a powerful Commissar and associate of Stalin's.

This episode is, ironically, the real-life background to one of Prokofiev's most untroubled and romantic scores, a comic opera entitled Betrothal in a Monastery, op 86 based on the English playwright Sheridan's &he Duenna, by which title it is often called in English-speaking countries. While Prokofiev had previously written his own opera librettos, this one was jointly written by the composer and Mira Mendelssohn. Boiled down to its basic concept, it is a sunny comedy about how a willful daughter of a Spanish nobleman avoids an arranged marriage to a rich fish merchant and ends up with her true love, while the wily Duenna of the title snags the rich man.

The opera was composed primarily in 1940, and more or less simultaneously with many parts of Prokofiev's Cinderella ballet score. Both ballet and opera were put on the back burner when war broke out in 1941 and Prokofiev began work on War and Peace and other more patriotic works. The opera was not premiered until November 3, 1946. By that time, it was clear that Stalin was taking steps to bring all the arts back under the firm control of the Communist Party following a period of wartime leniency. It was clear that at some point, recent works of composers would come under attack as had happened in the 1930s. For this reason, critical response to the opera was muted and uncertain despite its being one of the sunniest and most delightful comic operas since Verdi's Falstaff. Subsequent performances were scarce and, as he often did, Prokofiev salvaged portions of the project by transforming them into an orchestral suite, which he called Summer Night, op 123.

The suite is in five movements:

1. Introduction, a splashy orchestral piece which is derived from music the father and the rich suitor sing about their future "fishy" partnership.

2. Serenade, a rich, lovely, romantic tune set with remarkable delicacy against a shimmering background provided by an offstage string group.

3. Minuet, a comical rendition of amateur music-making by the father and the rich man.

4. Dreams, another richly romantic tune, this time associated with the opera's heroine, Clara.

5. Dance, a scene of revelry involving all the characters who have come out on top, including some monks who are not averse to dipping into their stock of brandy.

This 21-minute suite is vintage Prokofiev, no less beguiling and attractive than, for instance, the highly popular Lt. Kizhe suite. Probably because it appeared during the worst years of the Cold War, it never gained significant attention in the West; it certainly deserves a better place in the repertoire than it has now.

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