Language: Russian
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

The opera is split into two parts, Peace and War. The first half focuses on the relationship between Andrei and Natasha, with the object for a number of men including Anatole. Though engaged to Andrei, she agrees to hear Anatole’s declaration of love. However, she finds out that he is in fact married and finds herself in tremendous shame and despair. Pierre, the father of Andrei, promises to try and talk Andrei into forgiving her. News comes of Napoleon invading Russia. The War section of the opera follows the Russian forces in their attempt to defeat Napoleon. Andrei, wounded, reunites with Natasha. They declare their love for one another and Andrei dies. Eventually, the Russian people celebrate their victory over Napoleon.

War and Peace is a 1946 opera in 13 scenes, plus an overture and an epigraph, by Sergei Prokofiev. Based on the 1869 novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, its Russian libretto was prepared by the composer and Mira Mendelson. The first seven scenes are devoted to peace, the latter six, after the epigraph, to war.

Although Tolstoy's work is classified as a novel, the 1812 invasion of Russia by the French was a historical event, and some real-life people appear as characters in both the novel and the opera, e.g. Prince Mikhail Kutuzov and Napoleon Bonaparte. Mendelson and Prokofiev's original scheme for the libretto of the opera envisaged 11 scenes, and Prokofiev began composing the music in the summer of 1942, spurred on by the German invasion of the Soviet Union which began on June 22, 1941. The description "lyric-dramatic scenes" in the libretto accurately suggests both a homage to Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and an emphasis on individuals and their emotions rather than on the bigger picture of a country at war.

A piano score was completed by the summer of 1942 (two scenes having been changed from the original version), and it was submitted to the Soviet Union's Committee on the Arts. The Committee demanded that the Part 2 (War) scenes needed a more patriotic and heroic emphasis. Prokofiev, who had wanted to see his masterpiece staged as quickly as possible, added marches, choruses, and other materials to Part 2 to satisfy the committee. In addition, he composed the choral Epigraph, which emphasises the Russian people's defiance in the face of the enemy.

Director: Graham Vick (Director), Valery Gergiev (Musical Director)
Cast: Andrei Bondarenko (Prince Andrei Bolkonsky), Aida Garifullina (Natasha Rostova), Yulia Matochkina (Sonya), Larissa Diadkova (Maria Dmitrievna Akhrosimova), Sergei Aleksashkin (Count Ilya Rostov), Yevgeny Akimov (Pierre Bezukhov), Maria Maksakova (Helene Bezukhova), Ilya Selivanov (Anatol Kuragin), Edward Tsanga (Dolokhov), Yekaterina Sergeyeva (Princess Marya), Mikhail Petrenko (Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky), Yevgeny Ulanov (Denisov), Alexander Nikitin (Matveyev), Gennady Bezzubenkov (Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov), Vasily Gerello (Napoleon), Mikhail Makarov (Ivanov), Andrei Popov (Plato Karatayev), Orchestra and Choir of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg