Samosud's big break came when he was named director of the famous Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in 1937. He served as artistic director for the Bolshoi for six years where he began his long association with Prokofiev. After he was unexpectedly dismissed from the Bolshoi in 1943, Samosud became the musical director of the Stanislavsky Theater in Moscow. In 1951 he formed a new orchestra under the All-Union Radio Committee, which alredy had an orchestra. So he moved his new orchestra to the Moscow Philharmonic Society in 1953 and renamed it the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He served as principal conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic until 1957.

Samosud and Prokofiev

Samosud was most famous for his new interpretations of the operatic repertoire. He premiered numerous operas including Shostakovich's The Peaceful Nose. Samosud enjoyed a relatively long association with Prokofiev, beginning with the production of War and Peace, which received an abbreviated premiere under Samosud's direction on 07-Jun-1944. In fact, Samosud became Prokofiev's preferred conductor when he became too ill to premiere his own works. Samosud premiered no less than eight of Prokofiev's later works, including the Ode to the End of the War, Op 105 on 12-Nov-1945, the cantata Winter Bonfire, Op 122 on 19-Dec-1950, the Gypsy Fantasy for Orchestra, Op 127 from the ballet Tale of the Stoneflower, the Wedding Suite for Orchestra, Op 126 also from the Stoneflower on 12-Dec-1951, the Pushkin Waltzes, Op 120 on 01-Jan-1952, The Meeting of the Volga and the Don, Op 130 on 22-Feb-1952, and finally Prokofiev's last great work, the Symphony No 7, Op 131 on 11-Oct-1952.

Samosud was a very important champion of Prokofiev's works, particularly his operas. When Prokofiev was working on War and Peace during World War II, reaction at a preview of the work at the All Composer's Union was generally negative. It was only because of the strong advocacy of Samosud that the opera was ever staged. Samosud stuck with the work for more than ten years in its tortured path through several production companies, aborted stagings, and over-zealous bureaucratic censors. In addition to War and Peace, Samosud also took up championing Prokofiev's opera Betrothal in a Monastery, Op 86 and began a Bolshoi production of the work. However, the logistical impossibilities imposed by the war eventually doomed the production.

Although we have very few recordings to document it, Samosud, next to Koussevitsky, was the most important champion of Prokofiev's orchestral and operatic works, particularly in the dark years after Zhdanov's denunciation of Prokofiev in 1948.