Soviet Union—told him "isn't quite for us… it lacks that which we mean by monumentalism—a familiar simplicity and broad contours, of which you are extremely capable, but temporarily are carefully avoiding." By the early 1930s, both Europe and America were suffering from the Great Depression, which inhibited both new opera and ballet productions, though audiences for Prokofiev's appearances as a pianist were, in Europe at least, undiminished. However, Prokofiev, who saw himself as a composer first and foremost, increasingly resented the amount of time that was lost to composition through his appearances as a pianist. Having been homesick for some time, Prokofiev began to build substantial bridges with the Soviet Union. Following the dissolution of the RAPM in 1932, he acted increasingly as a musical ambassador between his homeland and western Europe, and his premieres and commissions were increasingly under the auspices of the Soviet Union. One such was Lieutenant Kijé, which was commissioned as the score to a Soviet film. Another commission, from the Kirov Theatre (as the Mariinsky had now been renamed) in Leningrad, was the ballet Romeo and Juliet, composed to a scenario created by Adrian Piotrovsky and Sergei Radlov following the precepts of "drambalet" (dramatised ballet, officially promoted at the Kirov to replace works based primarily on choreographic display and innovation). Following Radlov's acrimonious resignation from the Kirov in June 1934, a new agreement was signed with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on the understanding that Piotrovsky would remain involved. However, the ballet's original happy ending (contrary to Shakespeare) provoked controversy among Soviet cultural officials; the ballet's production was then postponed indefinitely when the staff of the Bolshoi was overhauled at the behest of the chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, Platon Kerzhentsev. Nikolai Myaskovsky, one of his closest friends, mentioned in a number of letters how he would like Prokofiev to stay in Russia. Return to Russia In 1936, Prokofiev and his family settled permanently in Moscow, after shifting back and forth between Moscow and Paris for the previous four years. That year, Prokofiev composed one of his most famous works, Peter and the Wolf, for Natalya Sats' Central Children's Theatre. Sats also persuaded him to write two songs for children, "Sweet Song", and "Chatterbox"; they were eventually joined by "The Little Pigs" and published as Three Children's Songs, Op. 68. Prokofiev also composed the gigantic Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October