Polovtsian Dances - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

Most of the themes from No. 17 were incorporated into the 1953 musical Kismet, best known of which is the women's dance ("Gliding Dance of the Maidens"), adapted for the song "Stranger in Paradise". Thirteen years earlier, in 1940, Artie Shaw recorded "My Fantasy" (credited to composers Paul Whiteman, Jack Meskill, and Leo Edwards), which has a tune virtually identical to this dance. Paul Whiteman adapted the music from the Polovtsian Dances theme from Prince Igor (1890). The Paul Whiteman Orchestra recorded "My Fantasy" in 1939.

A hip-hop song version of the music was produced by Warren G and Sissel Kyrkjebø for the album The Rhapsody, simply entitled "Prince Igor". The single was released in 1997, along with the album.

The theme was also used in the Massive Attack song "Karmacoma", from the album Protection in 1994.

The heavy metal song Lonely Winds of War by Masterplan also uses the melody in the chorus.

More recent adaptations of the music include the following:

Julio Iglesias recorded the Polovtsian Dances under the title Quiéreme in his album Emociones, a Spanish homage to Borodin's masterpiece.
British string quartet bond recorded an instrumental version of the women's dance in their album Shine, renamed "Strange Paradise" to fit with Kismet's use of the melody.
Different adaptations of No. 17 "Gliding Dance of the Maidens" have been featured as background music in several Japanese animated TV series, including Princess Tutu, Noir, and Kare Kano, while it is given a special significance in RahXephon. The track "The Garden of Everything" on the top 10 Maaya Sakamoto single "Tune the Rainbow" uses it as a sub-melody.
An arranged version of the song was created and used as the opening theme to the PlayStation 2 video game, The Sword of Etheria. The vocals are performed by Martha Matsuda. This arrangement was adapted for 'Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2.'
An arranged version of the song was used as one of the themes for the puzzle stages in the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 video game, Catherine.

In the 1970s, there was a television commercial for a classical music compilation set that tried to hook viewers by arguing that many of their favorite tunes were actually classical pieces. The narrator speaks at one point, with "Stranger in Paradise" playing in the background, and says, "You may think of this as 'Stranger in Paradise,' but did you know it was from the Polovtsian Dance Number 2 by Borodin?"