From the Background of the Rostov Theater of Musical Comedy: Myth and Reality

Main Article Content

Alexander Ya. Selitsky

Abstract

The Rostov State Musical Comedy Theater was organized in 1931 and transformed in 1999 into the Rostov State Musical Theater, where operetta and musical coexist with opera and ballet. The new theater keeps the memory of its predecessor, and in the completed season it also celebrated its 90th anniversary. The history of the Rostov musical comedy is a worthy topic for researching, but its long and rich prehistory is also interesting in its own way, which began in 1869, when the entrepreneur Grigory Valiano created an operetta theater there – the first not only on the Don, but also in Russia. Since then, this “light genre”, born in the middle of the XIX century in Paris on the Champs-Elysees, has not left the city, and has experienced one of its bright, albeit brief periods during the revolution and the Civil War. The study of the reasons for this rise, its nature, forms of manifestation, the birth and closure of numerous theatrical enterprises, their repertoire is the subject of the proposed article. The study of the materials of those years local press, among which there were three magazines devoted to the performing arts, allows not only to recreate a three-dimensional picture of Rostov theatrical life, but also, in particular, to expose the widespread myth according to which the musical comedy theater was allegedly opened in Rostov in 1919, which in 1931 received the status of the state.
Keywords: Rostov State Musical Comedy Theater, Rostov State Musical Theater, operetta.

Article Details

How to Cite
Selitsky А. Я. (2021). From the Background of the Rostov Theater of Musical Comedy: Myth and Reality. Music Scholarship / Problemy Muzykal’noj Nauki, 44(3), 19–28. Retrieved from https://musicscholar.ru/index.php/PMN/article/view/1283
Section
Musical Theater
Author Biography

Alexander Ya. Selitsky, Rostov State S.V. Rachmaninov Conservatory, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Alexander Ya. Selitsky, Dr. Sci (Arts), Professor at the Music History Department of the Rostov State S.V. Rachmaninov Conservatory