Naroditskaya, Inna - Bewitching Russian Opera

In Bewitching Russian Opera , 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. Bewitching Russian Opera ultimately demonstrates that the theater served as an experimental space for these imperial women, in which they rehearsed, probed, and formulated gender and class roles, and e

---

CONTENTS

Introduction
Overture: Russia's Imperial Prima Donnas
1. Russian Minervas Staging Empire
2. The Play of Possibilities: Serfs Enacting Aristocrats and Countesses Playing Peasants
3. Catherine the Empress(ario): Making Tales into Princely Operas
4. Oleg at the Roots of Russian Historical Opera
Interlude: to Patria and Nation
5. Ruslan and Liudmila
6. Rusalka: Water, Power, and Women
7. Mlada and Inescapable Female Circle
8. Sadko: He is the Hero!
9. Queen of Spades
Bibliography