Опера Ц. А. Кюи «Сын мандарина»: между востоком и западом

Abstract

The article considers the transformation of the Western European, Russian and Chinese culture influences in the one-act opera «The Mandarin's Son» by César Cui on the libretto by V. A. Krylov (1859). The author relies on an integrated approach and uses cultural-historical, comparative-analytical and musical-analytical methods. The scientific novelty of the study is connected with the appeal to the practically unexplored opera by Cui. As the author proves, «The Mandarin's Son» is firmly based on European and Russian artistic traditions (genre models of commedia dell'arte, Italian and French comic opera, the intonation dictionary of Glinka and Dargomyzhsky, the culture of home music). At the same time, the opera stands at the origins of the Russian opera East, which is modeled in the music of Cui using the techniques of the «Janissary style». The uniqueness of the «The Mandarin's Son» is connected with the fact that the opera becomes a «starting point» in the development of Russian musical chinoiserie. Comparing the text of the libretto with fragments of articles by orientalists and publicists of the mid-19th century, the author demonstrates the embodiment of the ideas about China characteristic of that time. The intonation-thematic analysis of the «The Mandarin's Son» also suggests that Cui had at least a general idea of the music of the Far East and made an attempt to stylize it.