«On censorial requests of the officials and “censorial desperations” of opera composers during the Czarist-era»

Abstract

The article is about a problem of the interaction between the censorship agency and opera composers in the Czarist-era. The subject has not been studied in musicology properly  though it is regarded as one of the most important components of the history of the national musical-theatrical culture.
The author focuses on the complicated  censorial cases of a number of operas of the Russian composers, such as “The Merchant Kalashnikov” by A. Rubinstein, “Soeur Béatrice» by A. Gretchaninov, “Esmeralda” by A. Dargomyzhsky and others. Some censorial officials who were held in  respectamong musicians – E.I. Kaiser von Nilkgeim, P.I. Friedberg – are given attention in the article. The influence of the musical principle on the «censorship invulnerability» of many operatic schemes is analyzed.
It is considered the characteristics of the activity of the Musical-Theatrical Committee under the imperial theaters as an institution, which in many respects took upon itself the duties of censoring the operas of Russian authors.

Keywords: сensor, opera, Russian composers,imperial theaters,
Musical-Theatrical Committee