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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Birgit Menzel; Andrei Rogatchevski
Event type:
online: Seminar/practice class
Displayed in timetable as:
06.139.0506
Credits:
6,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Contents:
The course consists of 14 teaching sessions of 90 minutes each and focuses on the genre of operatic libretto as a form of transmedial translation, from page to score to stage. Soviet operas, considered chronologically, are taken as a case study, with a particular attention paid to works by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Shchedrin and Schnittke. The course can be taught in either Russian or English. It has a multilingual bibliography in English, German and Russian and is open to all students, who will be asked to listen to the following operas, either in full or in part (where the subtitles are not available, an English translation of libretto segments will be provided in, or prior to, the class):
1-2. Intro: excerpts from Dzerzhinsky’s Quiet Don: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctTD783XF3o (conductor Karklin, St Petersburg 2016, no subtitles)
and
Muradeli’s Great Friendship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCK7Pms5AQ (conductor Zhemchuzhin, contemporary radio recording, excerpts only, no subtitles)
3-4. Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Msensk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVbbRQgQalI (a 1966 film by Shapiro, conductor Simeonov, Eng subtitles)
5-6. Prokofiev’s Semyon Kotko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ7WHMCDvL8 (conductor Jurowski, Amsterdam 2016; no subtitles)
7. Shchedrin’s Dead Souls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBPSHsuPEVY (conductor Gergiev, St Petersburg 2012, Eng subtitles)
8. Schnittke’s Life with an Idiot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMNadsBz-QI (conductor Volinsky, Novosibirsk 2019, no subtitles)
The remaining sessions will be taken up by student presentations
Secondary literature (some of the titles on the list below will be uploaded on Jogustine):
Patrick J. Smith, The Tenth Muse: a Historical Study of the Opera Libretto (New York 1970) <the introductory chapter>
S. Neef, Handbuch der russischen und sowjetischen Oper (Berlin 1985)
E. Kröplin, Frühe sowjetische Oper: Schostakowitsch, Prokofjew (Berlin 1985)
A. Gier, Das Libretto: Theorie und Geschichte einer musikoliterarischen Gattung (Darmstadt 1998)
B. Menzel, ‘Vse bel’kanto trudiashchimsia, ili Opera stalinskoi epokhi’, in Sotsrealisticheskii kanon, ed. by H. Günther and E. Dobrenko (St Petersburg 2000), pp. 980-98
S. Yekelchyk, ‘Diktat and Dialogue in Stalinist Culture: Staging Patriotic Historical Opera in Soviet Ukraine, 1936-1954’, Slavic Review, 2000, no. 3, pp. 597-624.
Caroline Brooke, ‘Soviet Musicians and the Great Terror’, Europe Asia Studies, vol. 54, no. 3, 2002, pp. 397-413
Laurel E. Fay, ‘From Lady Macbeth to Katerina: Shostakovich’s Versions and Revisions’, in D. Fanning (ed.), Shostakovich Studies, Cambridge 1995, pp. 160-88
S. Volkov, ‘Stalin i Shostakovich: Sluchai Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda’, Znamia, 2004, no. 8, pp. 152-80
Arnold McMillin, ‘Gogol’s St Petersburg Stories in the Hands of Russian Composers’, New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 2003, pp. 171-82
Andrei Rogatchevski, ‘Socialist Realism and Subversion: Alfred Schnittke’s Life with an Idiot (Zhizn’ s idiotom, 1991)’, Blok: The International Journal of Stalinist and Post-Stalinist Culture, 2004, No. 3, pp. 52-70
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“Libretto vo sne i naiavu”: a Russian-language website dedicated to librettology: http://www.ceo.spb.ru/libretto/index1.html
Assessment: at the end of the course, the students will be asked to either
a) introduce an opera of their choice (excluding those already on the curriculum), comparing its libretto to a literary source that the opera is based on; or
b) write an annotated synopsis of an operatic libretto, based on a short story by an author of their choice. The oral presentations will introduce these authors/stories/operas, as well as the libretto synopses, whichever is applicable.
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