Italian opera in Stalin’s Soviet Union

Abstract

This article explores the role of Italian opera in Soviet musical life from the end of World War II through the beginning of the Cold War. Italian opera provided inspiration for Soviet musical careers, exemplars against which Soviet musical development was measured, and simple musical enjoyment for Soviet audiences. The article analyzes two archival source bases that shed light on these dynamics. One source is box office data from the opera and ballet theaters in Moscow, Leningrad, and the Soviet Union's national republics. Analysis of this data demonstrates that operas by Italian composers provided a solid backbone of consistency in opera programming against which the tumultuous pursuit of a distinctively Soviet, multinational opera played out. Some especially famous operas were also so popular that they kept audiences coming to the theaters. The other archival source is bureaucratic correspondence regarding an effort to recruit Italian opera pedagogues to visit the USSR’s conservatories. Analysis of the correspondence uncovers Soviet bureaucrats’ insecurity about cultural development just as Soviet influence was expanding into Eastern Europe. It also reveals Soviet perceptions of Italian musical elites facing the complexities of the Cold War division of Europe. The article contributes to our understanding of the connection between performances of Italian opera and the construction of a Soviet musical culture that placed a very high value on opera as an advanced form of musical expression. It reveals that even during a period often considered the most insular in Soviet history, Soviet musicians and cultural administrators were engaging with their counterparts in the West. Finally, it demonstrates that the distinction between “international” and “transnational” cultural exchange that is often key to the way scholars of globalization analyze interactions that cross national borders is not as important in a Soviet context in which society was essentially embedded in the state bureaucracy.