MEYERHOLD, DIRECTOR OF OPERA Cultural Changeand Artistic Genres Dolja Dragasevic Goldsmiths College The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) ,ý)-©o -S CLI'ý'Ktv. Abstract This dissertation on Meycrhold situates his theatre practice, and, notably, his work on opera in the context of the changing political and cultural climate in Russia during the period 1905 - 1939 and its impact on developing artistic genres. It studies the way different genres in his theatre interlocked with, anticipated or captured cultural changes in relation to the aestheticsof the World of Art group, Imperial Theatres and the Soviet Policy on the arts and theatre. Meyerhold's work encapsulated the main tendencies and problems of the Russian avant-garde at the time, and the educational role of the arts in relation to the goal of social progress. The newly developing relationship between art and Soviet society was complex, where artists learned from everyday life at the same time as the public learned from art. In this context, concepts such as proletarian culture and artistic synthesis, in respect of the role of the arts are of vital importance to the argument of the thesis. Scholarly researchon Meycrhold has predominantly focused on the director's work in dramatic theatre, not on his work on opera, a field that is one of the most important aspects of his practice as a whole. Meyerhold wanted to bridge the gap between the spectator and the performer, to create a unified theatrical experience by utilising all the arts as epitomised in operatic performance. Despite each genre presenting its own problems, which resulted in treatments of staging relevant to it, Meyerhold sought to bring theatre and opera together into an integrated performance -a spectacle set to music. The cross pollination between the arts in the theatre established new ways of perceiving and creating performances. His rewriting of the score and libretto for dramatic purposes significantly opened up new possibilities for staging opera. Mcycrhold established new theatrical techniques drawn directly from musical terminology and structures. The director became an author of a production creating tightly constructed musical, theatrical and visual compositions on the stage, which sought to capture and commemorate the spirit of the age. This interdisciplinary research analyses the aesthetic principles of music, art and drama, which have usually been separated in academic study. The methodology applied consists of an empirical and analytic study. 2 Introduction Vscvold Mcycrhold is a key figure in the theatre of the twentieth century. His theatre practice embraced and significantly stamped his mark upon the European culture of the first half of the twentieth century. The director's search for an artistic experience which could harness all the potential energies of artistic expression drew him towards the public arena of theatre and opera. His creative career and directing work was and remains inspirational to many practitioners and scholars. Having fallcn victim to the Stalinist purges and executed on 2 February 1940, his artistic legacy had been shrouded in secrecy for fifteen years in the Soviet Union. The official day of his rehabilitation 10 January 1955 by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court opened the path to the restoration of his reputation and work in the country. This was a difficult path. Strict Soviet censorship lasting until perestroika resulted in the suppression of many key sources in regard to the cultural period studied. An interesting example is Eiscnstein's 'secret' preservation of crucial documents from Meycrhold's library after the latter was arrested. Another example is that the first book on Vkhutemas (The Higher State Art and Technical Training Centre), VkJ:utennas by Sclim Khan-Magomedov, an institution equivalent in stature to the German Bauhaus, did not appear until as late as 1995. Although there is a considerable amount of scholarship on Mcycrhold today, his legacy had been difficult to evaluate and restore, since for years he was persona non grata within the Soviet Union, and important archives were closed to scholars. 3 Alter his rehabilitation, the first wave of scholarly study in the 1960s and 1970s commenced with the first full critical account of Meyerhold's theatre practice by Konstantin Rudnitsky in 1969, and was followed in the west, notably in the work of Edward Braun, Alma Law and Beatrice Picon-Vallin. During this period many original sources were published: A compilation of work by his contemporaries edited by L. Vcndrovskaia, Vstrechi s Meierkhol'don: (Encounters with hfeyerhold in 1967; a two volume book including the director's writings, lectures, interviews, Meiekrhol'd: Stat'i, pis ina, recht, bescdy (1968) principle editor Alexander Fevralsky; Braun's anthology, Meyerhold on Theatre (1969), and Meycrhold's correspondence with his contemporaries, VE. Meierkhol'd, Perepiska (1976), edited by V. Korshunova and M. Sitkovctskaia. The second wave of study after the releaseof the KGB files and other state documents since 1989 resulted in publication of further critical studies and primary sources. The chronology of events related to the director's rehabilitation have been published in Alcicrkho! 'dovskii sbornik: vypusk pcrvyi in 1992, edited by A. Shcrcl'. Maia Sitkovctskaia's 1993 two volume edition, Meierkhol'd repertiruet is comprised of the director's documented rehearsalsof the 1920s and 30s. The first volume of the book Rlcicrkho! dv russkol tcatral'nol kritike, a chronological compilation of reviews of his productions from 1892 to 1918, was published in 1997, while the second volume, covering the 1920-1938 period, appeared in 2000. Oleg Fel'dman's edition V E.Afcicrkhol d. Naslcdic. 1.4vtobiographichcskie matcrialy. Dokumenty 1896-1903 in 1998, consisting of autobiographical texts and documents was followed by his compilation of further original sources in Mcicrkhol'dovski sbornik: vypusk vtoroi, Meicrkhol'd ! drugic: doku»ienty i n:aterialy in 2000. 4 Contemporary scholars arc increasingly attracted to Meyerhold's methodology as a director and its different aspects. Alla Mikhailova's book Afeierkhol'd I Khudozhniki (Meyerhold and Set Designers) examines his work with artists-designers. The compilation of articles in Meierkhol'd: K istoril tvorcheskogo metoda (Afeyerhold: Towards a history of creative method), edited by N. Pesochinsky and E.Kukhta analyse different elements of Meyerhold's technique. For example, Kukhta's 'Revizor' is concerned with the dramaturgy of his theatre. In Macedonia, the scholarship of Mishel Pavlovski's 1998 book Chista Igra (Pure Play) considers Mcycrhold's training of actors. Robert Leach's recent book Stanislavsky and Heyerhold (2003) explores the relationship between the two acting systems of these practitioners. Boatrice Piccon-Vallin and Vadim Shcherbakov's edition of articles in Afeicrkhol'd, rczhissura v perspective veka (Rfeyerhold, direction within a century's context), following the international symposium on Mcyerhold in Paris in 2000, demonstrate further research into the director's methodology. Articles by Nadezhda Tarhis '0 muzykal'nom rcalizme Meierkhol'da' (`About Meyerhold's musical realism') and Alcksandr Chcpurov's `Mizanstseny na muzyke' ('Staging set to music') have been of particular importance to the argument of this thesis. The former researchesthe musicality of his dramatic theatre in general, while the latter provides an analysis of Meyerhold's use of music in Masquerade. Meycrhold's work on opera has been largely ignored in favour of his dramatic productions. Even the scholarly interest in Mcycrhold's use of music tends to remain within the framework of his dramatic productions. Although there has been work conducted on Mcycrhold's staging of opera by Abram Gozenpud and Isaac Glikman, 5 these studies tend to separatehis operatic productions from his work as a whole. The methodology and ideas behind his operatic performances still require further research. This thesis argues that there is an inseparablelink between his staging of dramatic and operatic performances. By looking at these two areas of his work as a whole, it is possible to detect the inner logic of his explorations and the way in which his artistic principles developed. The primary focus is on Meyerhold's work in opera, since it illuminates his theatre practice and methodology as a whole. Meyerhold wanted to cross the divide between the spectator and the performer, to create a unified theatrical experience by utilising all the arts as epitomised in operatic performance. In both theatre and opera, he developed his use of artistic synthesis by drawing on the principles of music. Due to the lack of access to archival material, there has been a tendency in early western scholarship to separateMcycrhold's work into two periods: before and after 1917. In my view, this obscures both the social and artistic significance of his work. did The Russian Revolution, as well as Meycrhold's post-revolutionary theatre, not happen in isolation, rather, it grew from and assimilated various aspects of both European and Russian socio-cultural and political tradition. Although Meyerhold's work has been viewed within its context, particularly the politics of post-revolutionary Russia, for example in the scholarship of David Zolotnitsky's book Mfeierkhol'd. Roma: s sovelskol Was!'iu (1999), the complex strands of cultural, social and historical discourses in his work still need to be analysed. 6 This dissertation analysesthe aesthetic principles of music, art and drama, which have usually been separatedin academic study and aims thereby to expand the generic and methodological research on Meyerhold's theatre. The methodology applied consists of an empirical and analytic study. Mcycrhold's operatic work is rooted in the cultural environment of the time and it can not be fully understood without it. This study also situates his theatre practice in the context of the rapidly changing political and cultural climate (1905-1939) and its influence on the developing artistic genres. It examines the way his genres of performance interlocked with, anticipated or captured cultural change.