The Weimar Republic, oasis of liberty and cradle of extremism, welcomed -  with a varying degree of scandal - such radical operas as the blasphemous Sancta Susanna  of  Paul Hindemith,  the atonal  and anti- militarist Wozzeck of  Alban Berg, or the  multi-racial  and jazz like Jonny spielt auf of  Ernst Krenek. In spite of this background, not even the mediation of the prestigious conductor Bruno Walter was sufficient to bring The Fiery Angel by Sergei Prokofiev to the stage of the Deutsche Oper of Berlin. The constant setbacks with respect to the work led the composer to desist with its debut and re-use the principal musical material in the third of his symphonies, first heard in Paris in 1929.  Furthermore, the rise of Nazism in Germany and the hardening of cultural politics in the Soviet Union also delayed the opening of The Fiery Angel. In the end, it opened posthumously in 1954 at the Teatro La Fenice of Venice.  The production by Calixto Bieito extracts all the potential from this work in a most convincing and spine-chilling way. The action takes place in a closed society of the 1950s, taking this story of witchcraft, sex and religion to the realism of imitation leather sofas, crochet cardigans, medical abuse and child molestation.

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