Year's eve horns, harmonicas and old-fashioned musical beer steins that
play when you lift them up. Mr. Prokofieff waves his shirt-sleeved arms
and the sounds increase.

There is nothing difficult about this music--that is, unless you are
unfortunate enough to be a music critic. But to the untutored ear there is
a charming capriciousness about the sounds from the orchestra. Cadenzas
pirouette in the treble. Largos toboggan in the bass. It sounds like the
picture of a crazy Christmas tree drawn by a happy child. Which is a most
peculiar way for music to sound.

But, attention! The curtain is up. Bottle greens and fantastic reds. Here
is a scene as if the music Mr. Prokofieff were waving out of the orchestra
had come to life. Lines that look like the music sounds. Colors that
embrace one another in tender dissonances. Yes, like that.

And here, galubcheck (I think it's galubcheck), are the actors. What is it
all about? Ah, Mr. Prokofieff knows and Boris knows and maybe the actors
know. But all it is necessary for us to know is that music and color and a
quaint, almost gargoylian, caprice are tumbling around in front of our
eyes and ears.

And there is M. Jacques Coini. He will not participate in the world
premier. Except in spirit. Now M. Coini is present in the flesh. He wears
a business suit, spats of tan and a gray fedora. M. Coini is the stage
director. He instructs the actors how to act. He tells the choruses where
to chorus and what to do with their hands, masks, feet, voices, eyes and
noses.

The hobgoblin extravaganza Mr. Prokofieff wrote unfolds itself with