Soviet Сlassical Opera: Ideas and Realities

Abstract

The task of creating the Soviet classical opera had the highest priority in music in Stalin’s period. It was determined by prescriptive documents— acts of Central Committee of Russian national Bolshevist’s Communist Party and leading articles in the newspaper “Pravda”. The birth of the Soviet opera was supposed to become the indicator of efficiency of the national policy concerning music. Therefore, the Soviet government did everything for the fulfillment of this task including organization and financial support, which was permanently concentrated in the main theatrical and musical institute of the country— the Bolshoi Theater. The accomplished and non-accomplished opera projects and leading articles in the newspaper “Pravda”, which were dedicated to Soviet operas, are examined; the stereotypical signs of the Soviet opera genre in Stalin’s era are discovered. The conclusion is that the collapse of the project of “Soviet classical opera” resulted primarily in the fact that ideological motivations in the “Government opera order” finally dominated over the artistic criteria.

References
  1.  _____ (2002). Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaya intelligentsiya. Dokumenty TsKRKP(b)-VKP(b), VChK-OGPU-NKVD o kul’turnoy politike. 1917–1953 [Power and Artistic Clerisy. Documents of the Central Committee of the RCP(b)-VKP(b), VChK-OGPU-NKVD on Cultural Policy. 1917–1953], edited by A. N. Artizov, O. V. Naumov. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyy fond “Demokratiya”. (in Russian).
  2. _____ (1936). Baletnaya fal’sh’ [Ballet Falsity]. Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], No. 2, 6–8. (in Russian).
  3.  _____ (1991). Prokof’yev o Prokof’yeve. Stat’i i interv’yu [Prokofiev on Prokofiev. Articles and Interviews], edited by V. P. Varunts. Moscow: Sovetskiy kompozitor. (in Russian).
  4.  Verkhovtsev, I. (1951). Pechal’nyy akt [Sad Act]. Sovetskoe iskusstvo [Soviet Art]. March, 6, 1951, 3. (in Russian).
  5.  Vlasova, E. S. (1993). Venera Milosskaya i printsipy 1789 goda [Venus de Milo and the principles of 1789]. Muzykal’naya akademiya [Music Academy], No. 2, 154–159. (in Russian).
  6. Vlasova,  E.  S.  (1993).  Plenum  Soveta  Vseroskomdrama.  Fragment  stenogrammy, posvyashchennyy muzykal’nym voprosam (18–19 dekabrya 1931 goda) [Plenum of the Council of the All-Russian Drama Committee. Fragment of the transcript on musical issues (December 18–19, 1931)]. Muzykal’naya akademiya [Music Academy], No. 2, 160–177. (in Russian).
  7.  Vlasova, E. S. (2010). 1948 god v sovetskoy muzyke. Dokumentirovannoe issledovanie [1948 in Soviet Music. Documented Research]. Moscow: Klassika-XXI. (in Russian).
  8. _____ (1989). Yuriy Aleksandrovich Shaporin. Literaturnoe nasledie, stat’i, pis’ma. Stat’i o tvorchestve Yu. A. Shaporina. Vospominaniya sovremennikov [Yuri Alexandrovich Shaporin. Literary Heritage, Articles, Letters. Articles About the Work of Yu. A. Shaporin. Memoirs of Contemporaries], edited by E. A. Grosheva. Moscow: Sovetskiy kompozitor. (in Russian).
  9.  _____ (1951). Dekada ukrainskogo iskusstva v Moskve [Decade of Ukrainian Art in Moscow]. Pravda [The Truth], June 26, 1. (in Russian).
  10.  Efimov, E. B. (2006). Sumbur vokrug “sumbura” i odnogo “malen’kogo zhurnalista” [The Confusion Around the “Confusion” and One “Little Journalist”]. Moscow: Flinta. (in Russian).
  11.  Kovalev, A. M. (2007). “Trudy i grekhi…” Vospominaniya dirizhera [“Toils and Sins...” Memories of a Conductor”]. In Trudy GTsMMK imeni M. I. Glinki. Al’manakh [Proceedings of GTsMMK. Almanac], edited by M. P. Rakhmanova, M. V. Esipova, Issue 3. Moscow: Deka-BC. (in Russian).
  12.  Lobacheva, N. A. (2008). Povest’ o nastoyashchem cheloveke: 60 let spustya [The Story of a Real Man: 60 Years Later]. Moscow: Kompozitor. (in Russian).
  13. Maksimenkov, L. V. (1997). Sumbur vmesto muzyki. Stalinskaya kul’turnaya revolyutsiya 1936–1938 [Confusion Instead of Music. Stalin’s Cultural Revolution 1936–1938]. Moscow: Yuridicheskaya kniga. (in Russian).
  14. Medvedev, R. A. (2011). K sudu istorii: o Staline i stalinizme [To the Court of History: About Stalin and Stalinism]. Moscow: Vremya. (in Russian).
  15. Muradeli, V. I. (1980). Iz moey zhizni. Rasskazy o muzyke [From My life. Stories About Music]. Moscow: Muzyka. (in Russian).
  16. _____ (1951). Neudachnaya opera. O postanovke opery “Ot vsego serdtsa” v Bol’shom teatre [Unsuccessful Opera. On the Production of the Opera “From the Whole Heart” at the Bolshoi Theater]. Pravda [The Truth], April 19, 2–3. (in Russian).
  17.  _____ (1951). Ob opere “Bogdan Khmel’nitskiy” [About the Opera “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”]. Pravda [The Truth], July 20, 2. (in Russian).
  18. _____ (1951). Otkrytie dekady ukrainskogo iskusstva v Moskve [Opening of a Decade of the Ukrainian art in Moscow]. Pravda [The Truth], June 16, 1. (in Russian).
  19. _____ (1936). Ot redaktsii [From the Editor]. Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], No. 2, 8. (in Russian).
  20. _____ (1951). Protiv ideologicheskikh izvrashcheniy v literature [Against Ideological Perversions in Literature]. Pravda [The Truth], July 2, 1. (in Russian).
  21. Raku, M. G. (2019). Opernye shtudii [Opera Studies]. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo imeni N. I. Novikova. (in Russian).
  22. _____ (1936). Soobshchenie TASS [TASS message]. Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], No 2, 3. (in Russian).
  23. _____ Statisticheskaya tablitsa TsSU SSSR “Srednemesyachnaya denezhnaya zarabotnaya plata rabochikh i sluzhashchikh po otraslyam narodnogo khozyaystva SSSR v 1940, 1945, 1950–1955 gg.” [Statistical Table of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR “Average Monthly Wages of Workers and Employees by Branches of the National Economy of the USSR in 1940, 1945, 1950–1955.”]. https://ihistorian.livejournal.com/412544.html (accessed 29.07.2020). (in Russian).
  24. _____ (1936). Sumbur vmesto muzyki [Confusion Instead of Music]. Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], No. 2, 4–5. (in Russian).
  25. Tvardovskiy, A. T. (1989). Iz rabochikh tetradey [From Workbooks]. Znamya [The Banner], No. 8, 12–63. (in Russian).
  26. Shostakovich, D. D. (1931). Deklaratsiya obyazannostey kompozitora [Declaration of the Composer’s Responsibilities]. Rabochiy i teatr [Worker and Theater], No. 31, 6. (in Russian).
  27. Shostakovich, D. D. (1953). Eshche raz ob opere “Groznyy god” [Once Again About the Opera “Terrible Year”]. Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], No. 10, 30–31. (in Russian).
  28. Frolova-Walker, M. (2006). The Soviet Opera Project: Ivan Dzerzhinsky vs. Ivan Susanin. Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jul., 2006), 181–216. 
  29. Yekelchyk, S. (2000). Dictate and Dialogue in Stalinist Culture: Staging Patriotic Historical Opera in Soviet Ukraine, 1936–1954. Slavic Review, Vol. 59. No. 3 (Autumn, 2000), 597–624.
  30. _____ (2017). Russian Music Since 1917, edited by P. Zuk and M. Frolova-Walker. Oxford University Press.