Повесть А. Чехова «Чёрный монах» как объект композиторской рефлексии (на примере одноимённой оперы А. Курбатова)

Abstract

The article examines Anton Chekhov’s literary heritage in the musical interpretation by Russian composers. The main material for study was formed by Chekhov’s novelette written in his late period and its opera version created by the young Russian composer Alexei Kurbatov. The enigmatic circumstances of the creation and the musical qualities of the short story served as the occasion for research by numerous literature and music scholars. A special place in this category is taken up by Nikolai Fortunatov’s scholarly work Muzykal'nost' chekhovskoi prozy [The Musical Qualities of Chekhov’s Prose], in which the researcher interprets the structure of the novelette as that of a sonata form. The authors of the present article examine Kurbatov’s operatic text making use of the method of a comparative literary-musical analysis and show how the structure of the opera, its musical themes and characterization of the images correlate with the hidden musical form of Chekhov’s prose. This is also aided by the genre chosen by the composer — a literary opera that preserves the original text and the outline of the plot.