Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-380) and index.
Overture : Russia's imperial prima donnas -- Russian Minervas staging empire -- The play of possibilities : serfs enacting aristocrats, countesses playing peasants -- Catherine the empress(ario) : making tales into princely operas -- Oleg at the roots of Russian historical opera -- Interlude : to patria and nation -- Ruslan and Liudmila: the princess, the witch, and the dwarf -- Rusalka : water, power, and women -- Mlada and the spellbinding female circle -- Sadko : he is the hero! -- The inescapable queen.
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"The author Inna Naroditskaya investigates the musical lives of four female monarchs who ruled Russia for most of the eighteenth century: Catherine I, Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine the Great. Engaging with ethnomusicological, historical, and philological approaches, her study traces the tsarinas' deeply invested interest in musical drama, as each built theaters, established drama schools, commissioned operas and ballets, and themselves wrote and produced musical plays. Naroditskaya examines the creative output of the tsarinas across the contexts in which they worked and lived, revealing significant connections between their personal creative aspirations and contemporary musical-theatrical practices, and the political and state affairs conducted during their reigns."
Oxford Univ Pr, 2001 Evans rd, Cary, NC, USA, 27513
Empresses-- Russia-- History-- 18th century.
Kings and rulers in opera.
Opera-- Russia-- 18th century.
Opera-- Russia-- 19th century.
Women in opera.
Women opera producers and directors-- Russia-- History-- 18th century.