ACT 2: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING INTO
Increasingly nostalgic after a several concert trips back to Russia, Serge is persuaded by the Bolsheviks to return for good. Lina travels to Moscow in advance to prepare the family apartment and sing concerts for radio broadcast, but runs into overwhelming bureaucratic problems, a foretaste of life in Red Russia. Government authorities, in secret meetings, discuss their suspicions about Lina, altogether too Western and flamboyant, a bad fit in the new Communist society; they decide to get rid of her.

Scene selections:

scene 2.2: it's all in the timing (Paris, May 18, 1932) (audio)
Having returned to Paris after a turbulent trip back to Russia, with concerts and presentations including arguments with audience members about the value of his art, Serge receives a letter by his one of his oldest friends, composer Nicolai Myaskovsky, warning Serge that his music is poorly received because it does not cater to the working masses with a message of "socialist realism," a strict requirement of art in Bolshevik Russia. Lina and Serge are initially surprised and dismayed, but Serge (re)interprets this as a wake-up call to go back to persuade the Soviets of the value of his music.

scene 2.3: white lilies for Lina's premiere of "The Ugly Duckling" (May 19, 1932) (audio)
After Lina premieres Serge's composition "The Ugly Duckling" in Paris, they chat backstage about the performance and audience response. Serge also comments on Lina's radiant beauty: wearing a white dress made for the occasion, she holds a huge bouquet of white lilies from a secret admirer.

scene 2.4: "I've got to go back" (June, 1933) (audio)
In their Paris apartment, Lina overhears Serge talking on the phone and pouring out his overwhelming nostalgia for Russia: the springtime, the songs, the language. Lina interrupts to tell him that their good friend Vernon Duke has arrived to pay a visit, but Serge complains that he is far too busy composing, and tells her to admonish Duke to stop writing "that tra-la-la" music (in Broadway style).

scene 2.6: on her own (Moscow National Hotel, December 1, 1935) (combined audio 2.5 - 2.7)
Alone in Moscow while Serge concertizes in Europe, Lina calls him, overheard by the Soviet operator. Lina complains about overwhelming bureaucratic obstacles in her efforts to arrange broadcast concerts for herself, and secure the new family apartment.

scene 2.7: little insects (Paris, February 24, 1936) (combined audio 2.5 - 2.7)
Lina writes to Serge, who is traveling on yet another concert tour, describing the family's preparations to move to Moscow, and warns him against getting involved in the fierce political intrigues of Party composers.

scene 2.8: at Macy's (March, 1938) (audio)
In New York, during what turns out to be their last trip to the West, Lina and Serge argue constantly, their marriage now in serious trouble. They meet an old friend and Russian expat, Vernon Duke, a Broadway composer (aka Vladimir Dukelsky, also a composer of concert music). At Macy's department store they decide to buy things unavailable in Moscow, and reveal to Duke the restrictions of living in Red Russia.

Recordings by soprano Jennifer Jaroslavsky, countertenor Wee Kiat Chia, tenor Gregory Zavracky, and pianist Ketty Nez.

Photo by Unknown - Livret de famille de Prokofiev, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9564492