Coming Soon, Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood

We hear that there's a Peter and the Wolf with a difference coming up from Deutsche Grammophon this autumn, with none other than shock-rocker Alice Cooper narrating a updated version (complete with a prequel depicting the wolf's escape) of the classic 'young person's guide to the orchestra'. Prokofiev's orchestral fantasy has attracted a diverse range of high-profile narrators in the past (Sean Connery, Sting, Jacqueline du Pre and Dame Edna Everage, to name but a few!), and Cooper will also voice the various animal characters within the story.

Also weaving in music from well-known works by Smetana, Grieg, Puccini, Mahler and Schumann, Prokofiev's story of a young boy in rural Russia who becomes a local hero after capturing a wolf in a meadow has been transplanted to contemporary Los Angeles; Peter’s grandfather (previously a woodcutter) is a hippie gardener to a Hollywood film-star, and the hunters are paparazzi! Peter himself (who retains his Russian nationality in the updated version) eventually becomes a celebrity in his own right after catching a beast that’s escaped from Hollywood zoo!

Masterminded by the New York-based production company Giants are Small and performed by The National Youth Orchestra of Germany under Alexander Shelley, Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood is released on 13th November on Deutsche Grammophon; it will be available as a digital download, a CD audio-book and an iPad app aimed at the 5-8s.

In the meantime, you can watch the official trailer here.