Cui Snow bogatyr: Features of musical dramaturgy

Abstract

The article is devoted to César Cui’s children’s opera The Snow Bogatyr, one of the earliest and most representative examples of the genre in Russian music. Despite its sustained popularity in performance practice, the work remains largely under‑researched in scholarly literature. The authors focus on the musical dramaturgy of The Snow Bogatyr, examined in the context of folklore tradition and canons of opera. Analysis reveals that the structural patterns of the magical fairy tale determine the specifics of the composition and imagery structure of Cui’s opera. The musical dramaturgy demonstrates the composer’s deep understanding of genre conventions, with a clear orientation towards the model of the classical «grand» opera adapted for children’s perception. Despite the constraints of a one‑act format, the author incorporates traditional forms such as recitative, arioso, duet, ensemble, and chorus. It has been established that the imagery and intonational sphere of The Snow Bogatyr features an extensive corpus of quasi‑quotations, allusions, and reminiscences that evoke the national musical tradition – namely Russian folklore and composers’s works of the 19th century. These intertextual connections are driven not only by artistic aims but also by didactic goals: to build auditory experience and to foster an operatic thesaurus among young listeners and performers. As a result, Cui’s The Snow Bogatyr serves as a vivid introduction for young audiences to 19th‑century Russian opera and, more broadly, to Russian culture.