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‘The show wants to keep existing’: Isaac Mizrahi’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ turns 17
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Dec 6, 2024
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Courtesy of Isaac Mizrahi
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Dec 6, 2024
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It's almost unfathomable for a show to endure for 17 years in New York City.
Yet that’s how long it's been since Isaac Mizrahi’s rendition of the classic Russian folk tale “Peter and the Wolf” first premiered at the Guggenheim as part of its “Works and Process” performing arts series.
Even Mizrahi can’t believe how long it’s been.
“Is it 17? Oh God,” the 63-year-old Brooklyn native said in a recent phone interview. “Oh God, that makes me feel so old.”
The performance began as a one-off NYC event in 2007, when the Guggenheim tapped Mizrahi to narrate composer Sergei Prokofiev’s 1936 programmatic composition.
Isaac Mizrahi has been narrating "Peter and the Wolf" for 17 seasons.
Courtesy of Isaac Mizrahi
It started as a one-man-and-an-orchestra show and has grown into a choreographed, full-cast performance that now changes slightly every year, while mostly staying reassuringly the same: Mizrahi still narrates, it's still set in Central Park, the props and costumes are still simple, the grandfather still has an Eastern European Jewish accent, and, per Mizrahi, “the patches of AstroTurf are the same as they were like 10 years ago.”
“I didn’t have the expectation it would become an annual event,” said choreographer John Heginbotham, who was brought on in 2013 (the same year Mizrahi began directing it) to add a dance component to the performance.
“The piece has organically taken on this lovely, lovely life here at the Guggenheim each year,” Heginbotham said. “It seems that the show wants to keep existing.”
"Peter and the Wolf" is helped along by its perennially youthful audience — per Prokofiev’s commission, the play is intended to introduce children to the orchestra. It's only 30 minutes long and each character is represented by an instrument: Grandpa by a bassoon and the bird by a flute, for example.
Marjorie Folkman, left, and Daniel Pettrow.
Courtesy of Isaac Mizrahi
Heginbotham said the show is also helped by the fact that it’s nuanced, and changes in small ways every year.
“One of the reasons the show has longevity is because it's not stale,” he said. “We always come back and we always find new things to explore, or bring out from the story, or the way the dancers are telling it.”
For Mizrahi, who routinely revisits "Peter and the Wolf" and makes minute alterations, the 88-year-old script has become almost liturgical.
“You know how you read the Bible — you could read it a trillion times and you’d keep finding these really f--ked up, kind-of-interesting or great things in it,” he said. “In that way, it is biblical.”
Sometimes, Mizrahi recites it in his head at night to help him sleep.
From left: Isaac Mizrahi, Macy Sullivan, Paige Barnett Kulbeth, Derrick Arthur, Daniel Pettrow, Lindsey Jones
Courtesy of Isaac Mizrahi
“It's become this crazy little fairy tale that I tell myself and is such a comfort in my life,” he said. “It’s like this meditative kind of thing.”
While the script is nearly scripture to him, the recurring job itself is something of a holiday ritual that is as much a part of the winter as tourist hordes or the Rockettes.
Indeed, far from sick of “Peter,” during the pandemic Mizrahi co-created an homage to the show called “Third Bird,” which returns to the Guggenheim on Dec. 14.
Attendees clearly haven't tired of "Peter and the Wolf" either — it regularly sells out, as have most of this weekend’s seven performances.
Tickets to “Peter and the Wolf” at the Guggenheim are available for $20 and up and available here.
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Hannah Frishberg
Hannah Frishberg covers New York City arts and culture. Got a tip? Email Hannah at [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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