DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2022.3.38054

Abstract: The object of study is musical theatricalization, which is considered from the perspective of value communication. The novelty of the research lies in the theoretical development and introduction into scientific circulation of the generalizing concept of musical theatricalization, which allows combining genre dominants of various aesthetic activities in its field. The concept of musical theatricalization is appropriate and helps to cover all the available variety of musical and theatrical material without being constrained by historical and specifically professional frameworks. Musical theatricalization is based on musical and theatrical creativity as a conscious synthetic (in art) or unconscious syncretic (in folklore) form of expression of a multidimensional human potential. Musical theatricalization includes various forms of musical and theatrical performances and musical and theatrical genres formed during their evolution. Musical theatricalization acts as a genre class in which there are stable and mobile genre features. The musical and theatrical beginnings become axial, which can manifest themselves in different forms, changing the ratio of musical and theatrical means of expression. There is a movement of the theatrical component: from the minimal manifestation of theatricality in a musical work (the inclusion of kinesthetic means of expression) to the stage production of an opera performance and even a mystery. The study of musical theatricalization is carried out from the position of functional relativity, which allows us to determine the degree of importance of the phenomenon of art for individual subjects who are in a communicative situation. The same work can have different degrees of value depending on the historical and communicative context and, accordingly, on the functions that a particular work acquires. The aesthetic and anthropological value of a piece of music is determined by the functional mood of the addressee at a certain moment. The discrepancy between the functional mood of the participants of the communicative act for various reasons leads to a loss of the quality of communication and, as a consequence, to discrepancies in the evaluation of the artwork, the emergence of functional asymmetry.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2021.1.34909

Abstract: The opera by Jacques Offenbach “The Tales of Hoffmann” is a unique phenomenon in the history of the opera genre attracting the attention of interpreters and researchers. Dealing with the text, musicians face particular problems caused by an unusual story behind the opera and its other peculiarities. The purpose of this article is to study the specificity of the opera at the literary, music, and stage levels using  the hermeneutical approach. The three independent original works of Hoffmann were combined in a grand drama composed by J. Barbier and M. Carré, and then in a libretto (J. Barbier) by means of deconstruction of romantic stereotypes of the main character, which reveals the peculiarities of the opera under consideration and explains the topicality of this research. The music analysis is aimed at the detection of expressive means through which the composer had managed to explain the idea of the authors of the literary text and get it across to the audience. The key formative way of building a music drama is a “romantic irony” (M. Ya. Kuklinskaya). That’s where the genre dualism of the opera under consideration comes from, which manifested itself in the form of the synthesis of the genres opera comique and opera lyrique. The authors also detect the interaction of elements of both genres helping to create an unusual atmosphere of the opera, and the play with the audience, allowing manipulating the spectators’ expectations, which is more typical of operetta than of opera genre.