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Peter and the Wolf

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Peter and the Wolf (Music)

Peter and the Wolf (Пе́тя и волк in Russian) is a symphonic tale combining a story for children and orchestra music, written and composed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936. During performances, a narrator tells the story while accompanied by music played by an orchestra. Each character in the story is represented by a Leitmotif played on a distinctive instrument.

The story tells the tale of an encounter of a young boy named Peter with a wolf. The other characters are Peter's grandfather, a duck, a bird, a cat and an unspecified number of hunters.

The work has been recorded numerous times by many different orchestras, and has also been adapted to a variety of media. It has also inspired many variants and parodies, some of which include different characters and instruments.


This work provides examples of:

  • The Alcoholic: In one adaptation (the one narrated by Sting), the duck nearly misses her cue because she's too busy drinking at the bar, and she is literally thrown onto the set by the production crew. She then offers her drink to Peter, who responds with a scolding finger. She continues to carry the bottle with her for the rest of the scene until she accidentally drops it in the pond while arguing with the bird.
  • And I Must Scream: "If you listen very carefully, you'll hear the duck quacking inside the wolf's belly, because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive."
  • Avian Flute: The bird is represented by the flute. While this may not be the Trope Maker, it is almost certainly the Trope Codifier.
  • The Big Bad Wolf: The titular wolf of the story is the villain and antagonist of the story. He eats the duck and attempts to eat the other characters.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The story ends with the wolf captured and marched off to a zoo by the hunters. However, it is revealed that the duck that had been eaten was swallowed alive by the wolf, with her final fate uncertain.
  • Butt-Monkey: The duck. The clumsiest of the characters, gets embarrassed by the bird.
  • Cats Are Mean: The main role of the cat is to serve as a pursuer to the bird, though the wolf is the Big Bad of the story.
  • Cat Up a Tree: In this case, the cat is up the tree to escape the wolf, not to get rescued by the fire department.
  • Conveniently an Orphan: Possibly. It is never implied that Peter is an orphan, but at the same time we only know he has a very protective grandfather. His parents are never mentioned.
  • Dramatic Timpani: When the hunters enter, there are intermittent menacing timpani outbursts, meant to symbolize the firing of their blunderbusses.
  • Eye Pop: The duck gives one in the version narrated by Sting just before the wolf swallows her.
  • Feud Episode: There's one scene in the original where the duck and the bird get into a row about which of them is the better avian:
    Bird: What kind of bird are you if you can't fly?
    Duck: What kind of bird are you if you can't swim?
  • Getting Eaten Is Harmless: The duck survives being swallowed by the wolf. When the wolf is later captured and committed to a zoo, the duck is not liberated; instead, it remains imprisoned within the wolf, with the implication that it will survive there indefinitely. According to the story, the duck can still be heard quacking inside the wolf's belly.
  • Grandparental Obliviousness: The quest is done while Peter's grandfather is asleep and oblivious of his grandson's disobedience.
  • Hammer and Sickle Removed for Your Protection: In the original version, Peter is a Young Pioneer, i.e. a member of the Soviet Union's communist youth organization. Western adaptations always drop this detail, even when they maintain the Russian setting.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: If you dig deep enough. Grandfather is a bit hard on Peter, telling him to stay out of the woods. However, seeing how Peter's parents are never even mentioned, it's strongly implied that they are dead. Given that one of them would have to be his own son or daughter, this makes his protectiveness over his grandson all the more understandable.
  • Jump Scare: The moment when the cat slowly approaches the little bird until Peter suddenly shouts: "Look out!". Many children listening to this scene have jumped in their seats. Luckily the bird heard Peter's cry and was able to fly away.
  • Kid Hero: Peter.
  • Leitmotif: The entire story is built on this trope, and it is perhaps one of the best known examples of Leitmotif.
    • Peter: string instruments.
    • Bird: flute.
    • Duck: oboe.
    • Cat: clarinet.
    • Grandfather: bassoon.
    • Wolf: French horns.
    • Hunters: woodwind theme, with gunshots on timpani and bass drum.
  • Mickey Mousing: The various instrumental groups of the orchestra "voice" the characters and actions.

  • Named by the Adaptation: In the Disney adaptation, everyone (except the wolf and Grandpapa) are given names: Sascha (the bird); Sonia (the duck); Ivan (the cat); and Misha, Yasha and Vladimir (the hunters — "that's Vladimir in the middle").
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: How the HELL did Peter and Ivan go from cowering from an incoming wolf to have the wolf bound and completely at their mercy? The Disney adaption sure isn't gonna tell you.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Sonia the duck in the Disney version, who is swallowed alive in the original version. In fact, the storybook version of this adaptation has Sonia join Peter and the hunters in the parade through the village with the wolf bound up, with the illustrations showing her holding the wolf's tail.
    • Subverted in the Sesame Street version. Here, Telly Monster plays the duck, but when Papa Bear narrates the duck getting eaten, he calls it quits, pulling his bill off and leaving the scene. He comes back later as one of the hunters alongside the the Two-Headed Monster.
      • Another version, while ending the ordinary way, has an epilogue, where the wolf has to go to hospital, which leads to the duck being revived.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Peter is able to talk to the bird. Lampshaded in the "Weird Al" Yankovic version which has Peter go "Wow! A talking bird!" when the bird appears.
  • Swallowed Whole: The wolf swallows the duck whole and alive.
  • That Russian Squat Dance: Performed by villagers at the end of the Disney version.
  • Too Dumb to Live:
    • In at least one version, the duck was safe from the cat because she was in the pond, but then when the wolf arrives, she steps out of the pond and promptly gets eaten. As The Narrator, Sting lampshades this by referring to her actions as "foolish".
    • Averted in the 2006 version. The pond is iced over, giving the duck no shelter at all from the hungry wolf when she comes calling.
  • Translation Convention: Surprisingly, averted in the Disney version. All the in-universe writing is in Russian and a narrator talks over the in-universe dialogue, at one point Leaning on the Fourth Wall when Sascha spells out "волк" in the snow, which the narrator reads as "W-O-L-F!"note 

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