DOI: 10.36871/hon.202004013

Authors

Yu Yang
Institute of Music, Theater and Choreography of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation

Abstract

The article attempts a comparative analysis of two theatrical performances of "The Queen of Spades" by A. S. Pushkin and P. I. Tchaikovsky. The first one is directed by Lydia Steier and conducted by Aziz Shokhakimov at the German Opera on the Rhine in Düsseldorf / Duisburg (2019). The second one is a promenade opera, implemented in the spirit of immersive theater and directed by Alexandr Legchakov in an ancient Moscow mansion on the Yauzsky Boulevard (2017). The purpose of the research is to reveal modern methods of working with the original source to demonstrate a starting point in artistic reflection, that carries out the revision of interpretations and reinterpretations of the opera text. Putting forward the thesis that the presented projects go beyond the interpretation method, through which the basic text is preserved at the level of an integral system, the author shows that both German and Russian directors rely on the method of reinterpretation in their works. Contributing to the total deformation of the original source, this method gives birth to a new system in which the original source is identified exclusively at the level of the element. At the same time, there is a distinction between cultural reinterpretation and pseudo-cultural one. Fundamental difference lies in the following: while cultural reinterpretation, actualizing a new view of "old truths", does not break the continuity of the past and present, pseudo-cultural reinterpretation destroys the desired links, "erasing" the previously existing experience. On the example of director's works by Lydia Steier and Alexandr Legchakov the author shows both a sample of pseudo-cultural and cultural reinterpretation.

Keywords

"The Queen of Spades", A. S. Pushkin, P. I. Tchaikovsky, German Opera on the Rhine in Düsseldorf / Duisburg, performance, stage scenery, costumes, cultural reinterpretation, pseudo-cultural reinterpretation, the Doctrine about the Everyday Things Order, P. S. Volkova, I. V. Kochubey