Tag Archives: Russia

The February Revolution and the Mariinskij Teatr

mariinskij-teatr

The 1917 February Revolution had an immediate impact on the Mariinskij Teatr Opery i Baleta. The fall of the monarchy plunged the dancers into a state of confusion, and there was an atmosphere of uncertainty about the future of ballet.

Against this background, the well-organized opera artists demanded unconditional power at the theater. Representatives of the ballet company, faced with this attitude from their colleagues, complained to the director of the Imperial theaters and the government commissioner of the former Ministry of Court.

After the details of the conflict leaked into the newspapers, the representatives of the opera troupe officially declared their deep respect for the art of ballet—but the opera artists continued to treat their colleagues as a secondary presence in the theater. One reason for the conflict between the opera and ballet troupes was the group egoism typical for the revolutionary era, when the overly exploited role of the team eventually led to a confrontation with other teams.

This according to “Из истории музыкального театра революционной эпохи: Борьба оперы с балетом” (From the history of musical theater of the revolutionary era: The struggle of opera with ballet) by Petr Nikolaevič Gordeev (Музыковедение 3 [2015] pp. 11–15).

Today is the centennial of the beginning of the February Revolution! Above, the Mariinskij Teatr around the time of the Revolution; below, the Mariinskij stalwart Mariâ Nikolaevna Kuznecova.

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Filed under Dance, Opera, Politics

Dialettica del suono

The first Russian-language electronic journal for contemporary art music, Dialettica del suono, was launched in 2011 as a joint project of the independent creative association Диалектика Звука (Dialectic of Sound) and the Молодежное Отделение Союза Композиторов (МолОт/The Youth Department of the Union of Composers).

The journal, edited by Дионис Афоничев, is published twice a year and is available online in PDF format.  Dialettica del suono provides a publication platform mainly for young professional musicians, musicologists, composers, and critics. A supplement with scores by young Russian composers is appended to each issue.

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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, New periodicals

Naučnyj vestnik Moskovskoj Konservatorii

Научный вестник Московской Консерватории (Scholarly bulletin of the Moscow Conservatory, ISSN 2079-9438) was launched in December 2009 by the Научно-издательский центр Московская консерватория (Scholarly publishing center of the Moscow Conservatory).

This quarterly periodical with an editorial board under the direction of the musicologist and professor of the Moscow Conservatory Konstantin Vladimirovič Zenkin aims for in-depth coverage of research carried out at the Московская консерватория имени П.И. Чайковского (Moscow Conservatory named for P.I. Čajkovskij). It publishes scholarly articles, methodological materials, and book reviews; author submissions are selected by the editorial board. Научный вестник is published in Russian with abstracts in both Russian and English.

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