The Repertoire Politics of Mamontov’s Enterprise: Francophilia, Wagnerism and the Nationalist Crusade

L’opéra privé de Moscou est l’une des institutions artistiques les plus importantes et les plus novatrices de la fin des années 1890. Toutefois, il lui fallait survivre sur le dur marché de l’opéra en Russie, un marché qui ne faisait pas confiance aux entreprises privées, qui était soumis au pouvoir des théâtres impériaux, bénéficiant du soutien de la cour, qui était périodiquement secoué par les jeux politiques et diplomatiques du gouvernement et les batailles idéologiques de la presse. Les goûts personnels de Savva Mamontov le poussaient en direction du répertoire français, et sa volonté de donner à son théâtre une réputation d’exigence le faisait s’intéresser à Wagner. La décision de monter les opéras du groupe des Cinq attira sur son entreprise l’attention des critiques d’orientation nationaliste dont le poids grandissait, comme le montra la tournée d’une troupe wagnérienne. Bien plus, cet épisode contribua à faire de l’opéra privé de Mamontov le bastion de l’opéra russe national, légende qui oblitéra son rôle dans le développement du modernisme.Moscow Private Opera was one of Russia’s most prominent and innovative artistic institutions of the late 1890s. Yet, it still had to survive in Russia’s harsh theater market, dominated by the powerful Imperial Theaters backed by the court, rocked by the country’s shifting political alliances and its diplomatic chess games with Germany and France, and divided by conflicting ideological agendas aggressively promoted by the press. Mamontov’s own taste gravitated toward contemporary French repertoire, and his desire to cultivate a more radical image for his company meant expressing an interest in Wagner. But his decision to stage the works of the Russian Five also aligned his company with the increasingly influential nationalists, culminating in a spectacular competition with a touring Wagnerian troupe. This decision also led to the creation of a mythologized portrait of the Moscow Private Opera as a nationalist powerhouse, which until recently obscured Mamontov’s modernist legacy

Decentralising via Russia: Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar in Nice, 1890

On 30 January 1890, the audience at the Théâtre Municipal in Nice witnessed something extraordinary. Midway through the first public performance of a Russian opera in France, Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar, the chorus and orchestra broke into a rendition of the Russian national anthem, followed by the ‘Marseillaise’. Both anthems were then repeated, with the audience calling out ‘Vive la Russie!’, ‘Vive la France!’ With France and Russia on the verge of an historic alliance, the evening was proclaimed a political and an artistic triumph. The success of this unusual event, I suggest, can be explained further by considering the context of operatic decentralisation in France, in conjunction with the arrival of the new director at the Théâtre, Raoul Gunsbourg. As a result of local and personal imperatives, the performance came to resonate nationally, with A Life serving as an unlikely emblem of modernity, while also bringing one peripheral French region strongly into Paris’s purview

The Other Reversed? Japan’s Assimilation of Carmen, 1885 to 1945

Carmen is currently one of the most frequently performed Western operas in Japan where the character of Carmen has become widely known. This chapter explores the complex processes of assimilating and integrating a Western icon into the culture of a Far-Eastern country. It begins by establishing a chronology of performances and adaptations of Carmen in Japan between 1885 and 1945, and examines in detail: 1, the first performance of the opera by a Russian company in 1919; 2, the first all-Japanese-cast production in 1922; 3, the contribution of mixed-race singers such as Yoshiko Sato (1909−1982) and Yosie Fujiwara (1898−1976); and 4, Japan’s eventual role as a disseminator of occidental music to other Asian countries. These encounters between Carmen and Japan raise fascinating issues of race, gender, class, hybridity and proto-globalisation. By embracing the ‘Otherness’ of Carmen, the Japanese were not asserting their distance from the West but rather attempting to access its mainstream. In this way, by striving to incorporate its Western ‘Other’, Japan embarked upon a shift towards a globalised world

Carmen’s second chance: revival in Vienna

The international fate of the archetypal Parisian and ‘southern’ opera Carmen was significantly influenced by a German translation first performed on 23 October 1875 in Vienna. Already before Bizet’s untimely death on 3 June of the same year, Franz Jauner, the newly appointed director of the Vienna Court Opera, had commissioned an adapted version of the opera for the Viennese stage. This first revival was subsequently performed 476 times at the Court Opera between 1875 and 1932, with several generations of performers spanning the decades. Today it is easy to forget, that the German translation of Carmen by Julius Hopp played a central role in the work’s subsequent reputation and diffusion, providing reference points for generations of critics and spectators throughout and beyond the German-speaking regions. This chapter looks at Carmen in transition between Paris and Vienna, between the Opéra-Comique and the Court Opera, discussing some of the discourses and materials involved in this transfer. It also considers how the Germanic Carmen moved within Vienna and beyond, crossing both urban and transnational borders in the first decades of its reception history beyond Paris. Keywords Vienna Austro-Hungaria Franz Jauner Julius Hopp Bertha Ehnn Pauline Lucca Franz Naval Marie Gutheil-Schoder Anton Brioschi Franz Xaver Gau