Management Of Stage Research Articles

Mircea Eliade în dialog „prin timp“ cu Edward Gordon Craig și/sau „Teatrul Viitorului“ ca o „Fata Morgana“

"The Theatre of the Future” is a phrase present in the vast majority of theatrical theories that had the ambition to contribute to the renewed process of dramatic art at the beginning of the 20th century. Theoreticians and practitioners of the theatre wanted to restore the dignity of this art, redefining the condition and function of the actor, imagining the most effective ways of training him, promoting the emancipation of the stage director, seen as an indispensable factor of cohesion between spectacular elements; they redefined the framework and function of the performance that they imagined as an instrument of education, emancipation, even enlightenment and spiritual “salvation”, wanting also to liberate the theatrical creation from the submission to the dramatic author and the commercial servitude. If the first part of this article referred to the meeting, which, transcending time and space, put Mircea Eliade and Gordon Craig in a dialogue on the new dramaturgy and the experimental theatre, this second part brings into discussion their conception of the nature and aim of the theatre and about the ideal actor.

Stanislavski süsteem kui draamatõlkija töövahend / Stanislavsky System as a Tool for a Drama Translator

Tõlkija seisab oma töös silmitsi paljude probleemidega. Tekstilise ja kultuurilise tasandi probleemide lahendamiseks õpetatakse tõlkijale mitmesuguseid võtteid, kuid subjektiivsemate aspektide puhul, näiteks rääkija kõnemaneerile sobivama vaste leidmisel või karakteri eripära ja meeleolu edasiandmisel kõne kaudu tuleb loota rohkem tunnetusele. Artiklis on fookuses võimalike probleemide, eeskätt tunnetuslike küsimuste lahendamine draamatõlkija töös. Autor kõrvutab draamatõlkija ja näitleja tööd ning pakub võrdleva analüüsi kaudu välja võimaluse, kuidas draamatõlkija saaks tekstile läheneda samamoodi nagu näitleja, ja selgitab, mida see lavastustervikule juurde annaks.
 Summary
 This article argues that the Stanislavsky system can be applied in approaching plays to be translated.
 The first part of the article is focused on mapping the intersemiotic system of a stage production in order to determine the position of an interlingual translation in it. Even though several theatre researchers have attempted to categorise the various sign systems of a stage production, no single and universally approved categorisation exists yet. Even though such an attempt of categorisation can also be attributed to a number of drama translation scholars and practitioners, drama translation can rarely be found as a separate sign system.
 The second part of the article is focused on illustrating the extent to which a drama translator can contribute to the creation of a stage production. It includes examples from renowned drama translators, showing the different levels on which the awareness of a drama translator can make a difference. It also raises the question of whether drama translators could have a more systematic approach at their disposal when translating plays.
 The third part of the article gives a short overview of the staging process according to the Stanislavsky system. Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863–1938) was a Russian actor and stage director who is most famous for creating a system of acting and actor training. His system is currently applied in most of Western theatre and is the primary basis for actor training in Estonia. A large part of the system comprises a method for approaching and analysing a play.
 The fourth part of the article is focused on comparing the specifics of the works of an actor and a (drama) translator to determine the comparable parts of both professions. Even though the specifics of the work of an actor and a translation seem to have nothing in common, there is a significant similarity in the way of approaching a play text. Both an actor and a translator should thoroughly analyse the source text to find an optimal way of translating it into a new sign system: an interlingual translation in the case of a translator and an intersemiotic translation in the case of an actor.

Happening, a Controversial Hybrid Way of Cultural Expression

"The aim of this article is to explore an experimental acting exercise that took place in 2015 during a survival workshop guided by the Romanian-Canadian stage director Alexander Hausvater. The name of the workshop was “The total actor – The survival” and took place in Colibița, a mountain resort in Bistrița-Năsăud county involving 25 young actors. The actors embodied different human typologies for almost 12 hours in the town of Bistrița. The exercise was conducted in different areas of the town and each actor was supposed to remain in the “skin” of the character no matter the circumstances. Even though they interacted with civilians from the urban environment, they had to continue to exhibit the traits and features assigned to the character as if they were on stage. Many of the citizens were taken in by the deceitful appearances and believed that the actors they interacted with were real people with real issues. The closeness between reality and pretence was so tight that some of the spectators insisted on helping the needy, underprivileged typologies some of them were interpreting. Consequently, the difficulty in going on with the acting part became even harder for the participants in the workshops because of this interference. The main purpose of this type of exercise was to point out the complexity an actor is capable of and the involvement s/he must show in front of a changing audience, with a nonconformist moving stage. Were the actors able to prove the director’s expectations according to his given definition of a true actor? Were the actors ready enough to exploit previously unpaved roads? Was this type of practice beneficial to achieve the ultimate goal? Is happening the best way of showing the mixture of abilities an actor has? Keywords: happening, hybrid, workshop, survival, Hausvater’s artistic experiment, street performance, complexity, challenge, remain in character."

On Sarah Bernhardt’s Cancelled Production of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé

In late June 1892, the Lord Chamberlain’s Examiner of Plays, Edward Smyth Pigott, declined to licence Sarah Bernhardt’s planned production in London of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. Details of how the play would have been staged are limited. This has led to much debate about how—or even if—the Dance of the Seven Veils, a centrepiece of the play, would have been performed. Conversely, assumptions about casting, though supported only by circumstantial evidence, have hardened into facts. Here I note previously overlooked sources that speak to both of these points. The descriptioné of the Dance of the Seven Veils in Wilde’s script is famously brief: ‘salomé danse la danse des sept voiles’.1 The freedom that Wilde gifted readers and, later, stage directors to imagine the dance for themselves also obscured whatever might have been his own vision. Wilde’s friend and literary executor Robert Ross left the only clue of any substance when he averred, five years after Wilde’s death, that the author had not wanted ‘anything in the nature of Loie Fuller’s performances’.2 Fuller had achieved prominence in Paris in the 1890s with her ‘serpentine dance’, in which she manoeuvred large veils using hand-held poles while illuminated by coloured lights; she devised Salomé choreographies in 1895 and 1907.3

Rediscovering the Poetic Genius of María Irene Fornés

Rediscovering the Poetic Genius of María Irene Fornés Erin Joy Schmidt (bio) I feel we are constantly threatened by death, every second, every instant, it's there. And every moment something rescues us. Something rescues us from death every moment of our lives. For every moment we live we have to thank something. We have to be grateful to something that fights for us and saves us. —Fefu and Her Friends, p. 52 I first encountered María Irene Fornés's Fefu and Her Friends in 1997, exactly twenty years after its 1977 off-Broadway premiere. At the time I was a college freshman, and, quite frankly, was not quite sure what to make of it. I was utterly intrigued by the irreverence of Fornés's dialogue. "Do you think about genitals all the time?" asks Emma as she is gardening with Fefu. At age 19, I was not yet able to grasp the depth and invention of the human condition that Fornés exposed with her dialogue. My play library and theatrical vocabulary was limited to playwrights of the popular realm. I had not yet dug into genres beyond realism and naturalism. What I wasn't aware of at that time but what is not lost on me now is that a seed of curiosity was planted for Fornés in that first read. On the surface, the play seems like a simple relationship play written in the same vein as other popular 1970s kitchen-sink dramedies. The play centers on Fefu Beckman and seven of her friends who gather at her New England country home to rehearse a program for an educational society fundraiser in the late 1930s. Yet as the dialogue unfolds, it becomes clear how profound and nuanced the plot and these women really are. Weaving together the lives of these housewives and philanthropists, Fornés delves into themes of conformity, patriarchal oppression, and the feminine mystique without compromising the unique yet familiar relationships among the women. Writing about a production of Fefu and Her Friends at the American Conservatory Theatre in April 2022, theatre critic Jim Munson observed: "The other thing that makes this play's reputation is Fornés' writing style, which is grounded in realism, but occasionally includes poetry and other flights of fancy. This is also what makes the work so hard to describe." Although the play was intriguing to this young woman, a deeper understanding would only come with age (fig. 1). After that first encounter, it would take another twenty-five years for me to engage with Fefu and Her Friends. During the next decade, I received my MFA in acting, worked as an AEA actor in regional theatres throughout the East Coast, and taught performance at several colleges. I was introduced to all manner of plays and playwrights with, as would be expected, the most offerings from the theatrical canon of "well-made plays." Fornés's name would come up among the other surrealists, but more as a nod to her oddness than her brilliance. Now as a theatre professor and stage director at Providence College, our theatre department's play-selection committee was searching for plays to produce during our season dedicated to women in the theatre. As a member of the committee, I was tasked with proposing plays that would be a good fit for the theme and that offer something I would be interested in directing. I remembered that strange yet poignant play I read so many years ago, and decided to read it again and investigate if it might be a good vehicle for our students, remembering little more than the fact that it was written by a woman and featured an all-female-identifying cast of characters. As I began to dig into the text, I was enthralled by the way that Fornés crafted a plot that was driven by women who were confronting their issues, not hiding from them, in contrast to the women of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Williams, whose words surrounded [End Page 149] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 1. Undergraduate Madelyn Rich (Emma) performs a monologue as other cast members look on...

Wilder’s The Long Christmas Dinner and Broadway’s Birthday Candles: Interviews with Playwright Noah Haidle and Director Vivienne Benesch

American playwright Noah Haidle has been outspoken in his appreciation for the work of Thornton Wilder. His Birthday Candles borrows reverently and openly from Wilder’s The Long Christmas Dinner (Collected Plays 61–79) and its intriguing device of watching actors age onstage without the use of elaborate costumes, makeup, or special effects. Inevitably, the performers must depend upon assiduous technique and genuine charisma to carry out the illusion.Birthday Candles, a Detroit Public Theatre commission, had its world premiere in the spring of 2018. At the helm was Vivienne Benesch, who also directed Roundabout Theatre Company’s production at Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre (10 April–29 May 2022). The play’s setting is Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Haidle was born and raised. The main character, Ernestine Ashworth, is having a lifetime of birthdays, from seventeen to one hundred and seven: ninety years’ worth in ninety minutes. From her first line of text to the final blackout, the actor playing Ernestine does not leave the stage.The New York premiere featured a six-actor ensemble headlined by stage and screen star Debra Messing. On the play’s opening night, Enrico Colantoni played Kenneth, Crystal Finn played Joan/Alex/Beth, Susannah Flood played Alice/Madeline/Ernie, John Earl Jelks played Matt/William, and Christopher Livingston played Billy/John (Fig. 1). Kate Hopgood composed original music for the production. The sets were designed by Christine Jones, the lighting by Jen Schriever, the sound by John Gromada, the costumes by Toni-Leslie James, the hair and wigs by Matthew B. Armentrout, and the makeup by Kirk Cambridge-Del Pesche.On 2 May 2022, Terryl W. Hallquist, Performance Editor of the Thornton Wilder Journal, asked if I would be interested in interviewing Haidle. By chance, two members of the cast of Birthday Candles, Finn and Flood, were my schoolmates from Brown University’s MFA Acting Program. I attended the performance on 11 May. After the show, I asked Finn how I could get a copy of the script. The next day, she sent me a PDF of a rehearsal draft dated 7 January 2022. She also shared Haidle’s personal email with me. Without her generosity, the following interviews might never have occurred.In truth, they almost did not. At that time, Haidle was in the process of moving across the country. When I spoke to him on 20 May, he and his wife and son were between homes. Despite this, I found him to be affable and ebullient. In hindsight, I believe his admiration for Wilder prevailed. Haidle is a graduate of Princeton University and the Juilliard School. His plays have been produced in New York on and Off-Broadway, in regional theaters, and worldwide. In addition to his work in the theater, he is also a screenwriter. *My discussion with Haidle was jocular, absorbing, and inspirational—so much so that I sought to expand this piece with a contribution from his director, Vivienne Benesch. We spoke on 23 June 2022, after Birthday Candles had closed on Broadway. She was bright and amiable, the epitome of graciousness.A graduate of Brown University and NYU’s MFA Acting Program, Benesch has had a successful career on the stage, earning an Obie Award for her performance in Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives. In 2017, she received the Zelda Fichandler Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. She is currently the artistic director of North Carolina’s PlayMakers Repertory Company.

Jonathan William Wade. Being Portuguese in Spanish: Reimagining Early Modern Iberian Literature, 1580–1640

Jonathan William Wade. <i>Being Portuguese in Spanish: Reimagining Early Modern Iberian Literature, 1580–1640</i>

Meyerhold's Castings of Actresses for Male Parts

In this article I examine Meyerhold's occasional castings of actresses for male parts in a small, but significant, number of instances from his long career as a stage director. Meyerhold cast a woman for a male part six times, five of them in tragedies. However, he did so intermittently and for different purposes, to suit highly heterogenous contexts. Three cases have particularly interesting perspectives: his 1915 production at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg of Calderon de la Barca's Spanish Baroque tragedy The Constant Prince; his 1926 co-production at the Meyerhold Theatre in Moscow of Tretyakov's activist melodrama Roar, China!; and his 1931 production at the Meyerhold Theatre of Yury Olesha's contemporary tragedy A List of Benefits. The three cases are not connected but are – each in its own way – artistic reactions to the three consecutive, dissimilar systems of government, under which Meyerhold lived and worked: the Tsarist regime, the formative first decade of the Soviet Union, and finally Stalinism. On a more basic personal level, they reflect Meyerhold's habitual preference for tragedy as a means of expression to reveal the social mechanisms exploited by oppression or released against it. In each case, casting an actress in a male part poses a maximum contrast to the oppressive system inquired into by way of metonymy.

Ah, Wilderness!

Ah, Wilderness!

The Influence of British Directors on the Fundación Siglo de Oro and its Productions of Early Modern Drama, 2007-2021

The Fundación Siglo de Oro –formerly Compañía Rakatá– has been staging Spanish Golden Age and Elizabethan theatre since it was founded in 2006. Over this time, the company has developed an identity associated not only with its staging of early modern drama, but also with the influence of a series of contemporary British theatre practitioners on its rehearsal process. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy constants in its work is a fruitful series of collaborations with British stage directors, beginning in 2007 with Laurence Boswell directing El perro del hortelano (revived in 2014), in 2009 Fuenteovejuna, and in 2015 co-directing Mujeres y criados with company founder and producer Rodrigo Arribas. While, at first, we can ascribe this collaboration to the impact of the Royal Shakespeare Company Golden Age season, curated by Boswell, which visited Madrid’s emblematic Teatro Español in 2004, the company have continued to seek out British directors including Tim Hoare on Don Juan en Alcalá (2016) and Trabajos de amor perdidos (2016), and most recently Dominic Dromgoole on a new production of El perro del hortelano (2021). This latter partnership is also the culmination of a collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre which saw the company take part in the Cultural Olympiad with Enrique VIII (2012) and become the first company to perform Lope de Vega in Spanish at the London theatre, with El castigo sin venganza (2014). There has therefore been a clear exchange of ideas between Spanish classical theatre and contemporary British theatre practice. This article proposes to explore the methodological contributions of British directors to better understand how this has altered the in-rehearsal perspectives on the Spanish Golden Age to explain the benefits of this Anglo-Hispanic collaborative approach to the company’s work. This will be supported by an interview with Rodrigo Arribas, whose constant presence as founder, producer, actor and most recently as director can help us to understand the contributions made by Boswell, Hoare and Dromgoole to the company’s rehearsal methodology.

The quest for new values: Carmen Martín Gaite’s Don Duardos (1978)

ABSTRACT This article examines Carmen Martín Gaite’s adaptation of Gil Vicente’s Tragicomedia de Don Duardos (c. 1522), produced in 1978 by the Centro Nacional de Iniciación del Niño y el Adolescente al Teatro (CNINAT). The CNINAT was a branch of the Dirección General de Teatro y Espectáculos and the Ministerio de Cultura. Despite only four years of activity after it was created during the Spanish Transition, the CNINAT had a considerable impact on cultural policies geared toward children’s education, especially through the performing arts. Founded by stage director José María Morera, the Center became a civic engagement initiative committed to promoting theater as an experiential tool for the new generation coming of age during complex political change in their most vulnerable, formative years. Within this context, Martín Gaite's adaptation of Don Duardos represents a paradigmatic experiment for two reasons. On the one hand, the adaptation emphasizes the novelist’s prolonged commitment to developing and nurturing socially engaged children’s literature. On the other, it exemplifies how it was possible to recast early modern Peninsular theater as a progressive, inclusive cultural legacy that guided young audiences to new values and ideals that gradually took hold during the Transition.

Pedagogical challenges and design of virtual theatre performance: an exploratory case study

Covid-19 impacts universities around the world, changing online teaching and learning activities. These changes occur rapidly, causing teachers to look for creative online learning methods, especially learning theatre performances. Virtual theatre learning looks difficult and gives a challenge for teachers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, it is necessary to change the performance mode of production and virtual theatre teaching with the audience's presence through the gadget screens in their homes. This research evaluates and answers the challenges of acting pedagogy that has existed so far and designs a virtual theatre performance format that is certainly different from conventional performances. This research uses the exploratory case study research design. This design was used as a procedure to identify, analyse, and design pedagogical challenges and design a virtual theatre for University of Muhammadiyah Semarang students by giving them a questionnaire. The result shows that collaboration between art and technology is an effective formula for virtual theatre performances. The zoom application and its accompanying features were chosen to be a virtual stage for staging a work. The transition of theatre performances from the traditional to the digital era also impacts the creative team's duties and work responsibilities. It can be observed in the directors, costume stylists, music stylists, lighting stylists, video stylists, stage directors, and production directors. Virtual theatre performances challenge the creativity of actors and creative teams to produce works of art with the help of digital technology. By analyzing the challenge and designing virtual theatre performances, this research can benefit the art community in the future

Making an American Opera Career: Conductor May Valentine (1890–1974) and a Woman's Role(s) in the Business of Opera

Making an American Opera Career: Conductor May Valentine (1890–1974) and a Woman's Role(s) in the Business of Opera

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler: A Woman's Will to Power Hedda Gabler (1890) is the eighth of Henrik Ibsen’s twelve social plays from The Pillars of Society (1877) to When We Dead Awaken (1899). Most critics and stage directors construe it as a play in the realist tradition and as a pièce bien faite. In this essay, I argue for a different kind of interpretation based on the important studies of the play by Else Høst, John Northam and Brian Johnston. Like Høst, I start with the protagonist’s (Hedda’s) comments about vine leaves in Ejlert Løvborg’s (her former suitor’s) hair. Through these comments, Hedda can be associated to the wineleaves of Emperor Julian in Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean (1873), where the protagonists Julian and Maximos, a kind of mystic, discuss a utopian realm built on both the Dionysic Greek and the Christian mystical tradition. Hedda is a late follower of this mysticism. In this essay, I emphasize the existential aspect of Hedda’s searching for authentic values. I consider Hedda as an outsider, although she is involved in a fight for power, just as the other characters are. The other characters are described in detail and their actions are fully understandable, whereas Hedda’s character lacks determination. We do not know why she married Tesman. We do not know if she is pregnant. We do not know why she sets fire to Løvborg’s manuscript. Jealousy is too weak an explanation. Whereas the other characters search for the lukewarm indifference of everyday life, Hedda aims at the magnificent and the impossible. She represents the indeterminate aspect of the play, she is the character which does not fit into the realist structure, the character looking beyond and above the other characters, the character open to completely different interpretations, also on stage. Through her suicide she motivates the reader and the spectator to reflect on the metaphysical aspects of life.

Performative Aspects of Mahesh Dattani’s Plays

Modern theatre in India comprises mainly of English, Hindi, Marathi and Hinglish (comprising of a mix of Hindi and English dialogues) plays. English theatre was brought to India during the British rule and was watched mostly by art connoisseurs of the rich, upper class. This, however, changed after independence, as, many Indians entered the fray and theatre slowly became open for common people too. The post-independence Indian English drama is notable for a wide range of subjects treated, issues presented and also it takes into its compass some globally appealing issues. It displays a remarkable growth and maturity. Mahesh Dattani is a dynamic dramatist, a professional Baratnatyam dancer, a drama teacher, a stage director, and an actor. A person, who has touched almost every aspect of the theatre and has received the first ‘SahityaAkadami Award’ (1998) for writing in English, he is rightly called the successor of Girish Karnad for his innovations in dialogue writing, pragmatic stage decorations, light arrangements, etc. One of his major contributions is that he has infused actability into Indian drama in English. It seems that, all the limitations, which in a way marred the beauty of Indian English theatre down the decades, are finally overcome. As Reena Mitra observes, ‘Dattani confidently challenges the traditional denotations and connotations of the words’ India’ and ‘Indians’.1 What makes his plays ‘performance oriented’ are his dramatic techniques. The paper intends to focus upon the aspects which make his drama stand out.

The formation of basic approaches of anthropological theater and theatrical anthropology

This article reveals the basic techniques and approaches formed at the dawn of two important and relevant vector of interaction between theater and cultural anthropology in modern theater art, anthropological theater and theatrical anthropology. The goal of this research lies in the analysis of basic techniques and terms that emerged at the early stages of establishment of practical and theoretical approaches towards studying the ritual and theatrical forms. P. Brook's expeditions raised the question of the key elements of theatrical art. For achieving the result, the English the director and screenwriter used bodily techniques and work with space and objects existing in ritual forms. E.Barba, while working in Amazon jungle, resorted to the tactics of participant observer B. Malinowski. The technique of cultural exchange, which appeared in 1970s, is used by K. Kazimierzczuk and modern Polish anthropological theater. The methods of cultural anthropology underlies the formation and development of new ways of interaction and communication between the actors and audience. The experimental works of Peter Brook and Eugenio Barba of the 1970s are analyzed from the perspective of using the methods of cultural anthropology by stage directors. Anthropological theater and theatrical anthropology reveal to modern practitioners and theorists of theatrical art a wide variety of unique methods of work with corporeal nature of the actor, and become the foothold for the development of new relations between the actor-performer and viewer-copartner in performative practices and multicultural phenomena.

РУССКАЯ РЕЖИССЕРСКАЯ ШКОЛА И ДРАМАТУРГИЯ В ТЕАТРЕ ВАГЕ ШАХВЕРДЯНА

The authors focus on the theater of the director Vahe Shakhverdyan, which is a phenomenon in the history and modern life of Armenian performing art. Emphasizing the relevance and significance of the theatrical and cultural description of this artistic phenomenon, the authors correlate it with the phenomenon of the independent theater. The research is based on the principles of studying and analysing the director’s theater developed by the Russian school of theater studies. The article is the first attempt of the theatrical analysis of Shakhverdyan’s creative work as a stage director. The authors emphasize the decisive role of the Russian directing theater training in the formation and development of Shakhverdyan's theater. The artistic originality of Shakhverdyan’s theater is revealed during the analysis of his performances based on Russian classical drama. The performances based on the plays by M. Y. Lermontov, A. N. Ostrovsky and A. P. Chekhov, staged by Shakhverdyan in Armenian and Russian theaters are analyzed in the article. The research is based on the analysis of video footage of the plays, descriptions of performances by critics, and on the material from conversations of one of the authors of the article with the director Shakhverdyan, as well as on other interviews given by the director. The results of the study allow us to assert that Russian theater and Russian drama occupy one of the most important places in Shakhverdyan’s theater. The productions of Russian plays demonstrate Shakhverdyan’s original directing manner. It is distinguished by his bright theatrical metaphors, lack of gravitation toward immediate relevance, and an expressed desire for philosophical, humanistic performances. Shakhverdyan's individual theatrical style is based on the Russian directing education he received, on his comprehension of Russian stage performances by outstanding Soviet and Russian directors, and on the national character of Armenian people, their mentality, temperament, vivid imagery and tragic perception of the world.

Алгоритм работы концертмейстера и артиста над партией-ролью в традиции русского музыкального театра ХХ в.

The author of the article takes into the account his work as a stage director with the dramaturgy of the vocal material in the Russian music theatre, as well as the analysis of the rehearsal process of the famous theatrical figures on the music and text material of the opera. He reveals the specific features of the joint creative process of both the accompanist and the actor on the part-role in the process of creating an artistic images in an opera performance. It is analyzed the situation, common in the rehearsal process, when most practitioners in the field of performing arts focus on the final process of embodying the image of the character. Thus they miss the initial stage of preparing the actor for learning the music and poetic text. In the center of the article are systematic statements and recorded experience of working with the actors and accompanists of the chamber music theatre on the part-role of the famous practitioners of the Russian music scene L. A. Mogilevskaya and B.A. Pokrovsky. It reveals the connection of their directorial rehearsal methodology with the systematic works of F.I. Shalyapin and K.S. Stanislavsky. Developing N.I. Kuznetsov’s concept about the stages of careful studying of musical and textual opera material together with the accompanist, practical recommendations are given to novice singers, mature opera actors and teachers on the details of the interaction between the actor and the coach in modern realities. In many ways, they are based on the author’s own observations of the rehearsal process of the chief guest conductor Jan Latham-Koenig (Great Britain) at The Kolobov Novaya Opera Theatre of Moscow. The results obtained allow us to judge about the full involvement of world-famous conductors in the problems of the work of an accompanist and a professional vocalist. It is proposed to systematize the main stages of the opera actort’s work on the part-role. It is important to take into account the real theatrical experience and the requirements of the conductor in the perspective of the opportunities that open up before him in the process of cooperation with the accompanist at the opera stage.

Mircea Eliade în dialog „prin timp“ cu Edward Gordon Craig și/sau „Teatrul Viitorului“ ca o „Fata Morgana“

“The Theatre of the Future” is a notion present in the vast majority of theatrical theories that had the ambition to contribute to the renewal process of dramatic art, at the beginning of the 20th century. Theoreticians and practitioners of the theater wanted to restore the dignity of this art, redefining the condition and function of the actor, imagining the most effective ways of training him, promoting the emancipation of the stage director, seen as an indispensable factor of cohesion between spectacular elements; they redefined the framework and function of the performance that they imagined as an instrument of education, emancipation, even enlightenment and spiritual “salvation”, wanting also to liberate the theatrical creation from the submission to the dramatic author and to the commercial servitude.

A MASK IN THE PRODUCTION OF S. PROKOFIEV’S OPERA “THE LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES” AT CXID-OPERA IN 2019

Statement of the problem. In the practice of modern theatre, particularly in the performances that have long-lasting history of production, any component of director’s vision might be conceptualized, regardless of how important it might be seen traditionally. Thus, it becomes even more important to highlight main principles of such conception, to prove its rationality on the basis of both scholars’ works and real-life performance tradition. In the production of S. Prokofiev’s opera “The Love for Three Oranges” at CXID-OPERA (Kharkiv, 2019; chief conductor – D. Morozov, stage director – A. Kaloyan, artistic director – A. Baitenova, chief choirmaster – O. Chernikin), an extremely important role belongs to masks which are used by actors of all levels, from the protagonist to the characters who are on stage for no more than a minute. Analysis of recent researches demonstrates that S. Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges” has been studied thoroughly both in the composer’s homeland and abroad, especially given it was premiered in the USA. Scholars’ attention has also been brought to V. Meyerhold’s interpretation of C. Gozzi’s fairy-tales, including his director’s version of “The Love for Three Oranges”. The multiple relationship between S. Prokofiev’s opera and la commedia dell’arte as well as the very phenomena of Italian theatre have been examined. However, there is no research on how the use or refusal to use masks might influence a production and how it helps to establish a hierarchical relation between the characters. The purpose of the article is to identify the meaning and function of the use of masks in the genre-plot system of S. Prokofiev’s opera “The Love for Three Oranges” in CXID-OPERA’s production based on its visual imagery analysis. Results and conclusions. It is found out that the director’s use of the mask in creating the stage image of most of the characters allows him to further emphasize the genetic relation of the opera to la commedia dell’arte. Only a few characters appear on stage with an open face – Ten “Ridicules” (Cranks), Magician Tchelio, Fata Morgana and La Cuisini&amp;#232;re (Cooky) – namely, those whose presence is not provided by the genre canons of la commedia dell’arte, those who do not “bow” to the plot-line but who are in control of it so or otherwise. The costumes of these characters differ from the outfit of the rest; in each case this contrast is conditioned by the character’s status and its role in the plot (for instance, Les Ridicules are the only ones wearing modern-day suits with bowties which allow to comprehend them as a mirroring of the spectators who watch the opera at a given moment). Thus, the use of a mask has a dual function: to demonstrate the genre genesis of the plot and to illustrate the hierarchy of the opera characters.