Кинематографические приемы в оперном театре России 1920-х годов

Abstract

The article examines cinematography’s influence on the Soviet opera theatre of the 1920s. By the beginning of this decade, cinema rapidly gained popularity and began being perceived as a serious competitor to theatre. Awareness and comprehension of the new “threat” reasonably led to appeals for upgrading theatrical language with the help of new technical means. There were several innovations in the operas on stage: the use of intense straight lighting with the help of floodlights, montage as a director’s technique, the use of film screen in opera productions. It all confirmed that the process of cinemafication of the theatre had also affected the opera stage. The new trends expressed themselves in the productions of Sergey Radlov (“Vozzek” by Alban Berg), Nikolay Smolich (“The Golden Cockerel” by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, “Johnny Plays” by Ernst Krenek), Iosif Lapitsky (“Salome” by Richard Strauss, “The Queen of Spades” by Petr Tchaikovsky). Thus, in his version of “The Golden Cockerel” (1923), the opera director N. Smolich used a film projection, and then, staging E. Kshenek’s opera “Johnny Plays” (1928), he used animation. In the “The Queen of Spades” (Experimental Theatre), I. Lapitsky while trying to make the action cinematically dynamic, divided it into forty small episodes. The influence of cinema can also be traced in opera performances of the 1920s. The most vivid example is Dmitry Shostakovich’s opera “The Nose” with his special montage style of action. Opera cinemafication didn’t reach such heights as in dramatic theatre and faced a different, not always approving, reaction from the musical press. The time of ambitious experiments ended in the 1930s with a change in the country’s cultural policy.