12 Facts About Mira Mendelson

Mira Mendelson was the co-librettist of her husband's operas Betrothal in a Monastery, The Story of a Real Man, and War and Peace, as well as the ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower.

Mira Mendelson's father was an economist and statistician, while her mother had earned recognition for her work as a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Mira Mendelson remembered that the son of Alexander Fersman drew her attention to Prokofiev's presence at the resort.

Mira Mendelson later wrote that she had been fascinated by Prokofiev's "foreign" elegance and charm.

Prokofiev began sketching out the Piano Sonata No 8, a work whose first movement "Andante dolce" theme he told Mira Mendelson was inspired by her.

Mira Mendelson dedicated the score to her upon its completion in 1944.

Mira Mendelson moved into Mendelson's apartment in central Moscow a few days later.

Out of that came the couple's most important artistic collaboration, the opera War and Peace, a subject Mira Mendelson's father suggested was better suited for the composer.

Mira Mendelson died from a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5,1953.

The legal process, statements by Lina which Mira Mendelson considered to be smears against Prokofiev, and the aid his ex-wife received in her petition by her personal friend Khrennikov, whom Mira Mendelson regarded a tormentor to her husband, left her feeling despondent.

Mira Mendelson spent her own final years living in the same Moscow apartment she had shared with her husband, although she privately commented on how her neighbors distressed her and how difficult life without Prokofiev was.

Mira Mendelson occupied her time organizing her husband's papers, promoting his music, and writing her memoirs.