The paper analyses these two operettas, as mixtum compositum, in the context of socio-cultural and political milieu of Vienna, at the time of their first performances.Īfter graduating from the Budapest Conservatory in 1896, where he studied violin with Jenő Hubay, Petar Stojanović continued his education at the Vienna Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts, established by the Society for Friends of Music, and, at this particular institution, gained diplomas in violin (1896–1898), general composition (1899–1901) and dramatic composition (1902–1904). The kind of reputation he enjoyed in Vienna as a composer, violinist and violin teacher was the starting point for many reviews on him, while his operettas provoked strong, often contradictory reactions. At the time of the premieres of Stojanović’s operettas, his name was not unknown in Viennese musical circles. Both operettas were performed at The Carltheater in Vienna, which, apart from the Theater an der Wien, was considered the second leading operetta theatre in the first and the second flowering period of operetta. The author of the libretto in both operettas was Viktor Léon, who also wrote the libretto for Lehar’s operetta The Merry Widow. Chronologically, Stojanović’s operettas belong to the so-called “Silver age of operetta” (1901−1920), whose main representative was a composer of Hungarian origin, Franz Lehár, whose works reflect a music equivocation that evokes the national fragmentation of the Danube monarchy. Premieres of Petar Stojanović’s operettas The girl from the Garrett and The Duke of Reichstadt were covered extensively in the Viennese press (Neue Freie Presse, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Neues Wiener Journal etc.) judging by the number of reviews, they could have been favourably compared to the premieres of a state opera. Thus the book is topical for readers interested not only in music but also in the history of culture, politics and diplomacy. Their reception is perceived as a result of creative dialogue that Mokranjac and his ensemble aimed to accomplish through the presentation of national music abroad, as an indicator of current ideas on Slavic, South-Slavic, Yugoslav and Balkan interconnections, as well as a prime example of the incorporation of musical practices into the official strategies of Serbian cultural diplomacy in the years before the outbreak of First World War. The tours are observed within complex frameworks of international culture and politics. It offers a wealth of new information on Stevan Mokranjac’s concert tours with the Belgrade Choral Society that took them to numerous cities of the Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans at the turn of the 20th century. The collection of papers, published both in Serbian and English editions, contains chapters written by experts from research centres in Germany, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |