Traits of Mystery (miracle play), Tragedy and Commedia Dell'Arte in a Fairy-Opera-Film

Abstract

This article deals with a fairy-opera-film and its specifics. The author reveals traits of mystery (miracle play) in a fairy-opera-film, basing upon a notion of mystery of Carl Orffs theory, in the way as Orff meant it. Syncretism in different kinds of art, specifics of word as an art facility (meaning of a word and a word as sound) are specified. As examples the following films are taken: Bluebeard's Castle (composer Bela Bartok, filmmaker W. Golovin,1968), Iolanta (composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, filmmaker W. Gorriker,1963) and animated musical The Snow Maiden (composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, filmmaker I. Ivanow-Vano,1952). Special attention is drawn to the opera film The Queen of Spades (composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, filmmaker R. Tihomirov,1960). The author discloses in fairy-opera-film elements of commedia dell'arte, that is improvisation and masks. For example in films The Love for three Oranges (composer Sergei Prokofiev, filmmakers W. Titov and J. Bogatyrenko,1970) and The Magic Flute (composer Wolfgang A. Mozart, filmmaker I. Bergman,1975). The author comes to the conclusion concerning the targets and tasks of a fairy-opera-film. Through watching fairy-opera-films children should live cultural and psychological history of humanity step by step in its development through music, dance culture and drama (theater). The main task of fairy-opera-film is to save an entity of a human being, to prevent a childs mutation into either a superman (or bermensch in F. Nietzsches term) or degeneration.