Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker is popular throughout the world. One of the most famous productions going on modern stages is V. I. Vainonen’s ballet, based on M. Petipa’s script. The article deals with the issues of continuation and development of M. Petipa’s traditions in V. Vainonen’s The Nutcracker and shows the role of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in preserving the ballet The Nutcracker — one of the masterpieces of the national ballet heritage.

The event performance The Red Poppy is almost a hundred years old. The title of the article introduces the antithesis of the speech “red” and “East”. It is implied that red is a period of time (the revolutionary era of the 1927–1930’s) and red is the dominant color of the Soviet worldview. Red East is the name of a printing company in Baku that released a brochure of the libretto The Red Poppy for the 1928 season (the first touring season of the Bolshoi Academic Moscow Opera and Ballet Theater after the premiere of R. M. Glier in 1927 in Moscow) and the definition of Oriental culture in the focus of the artistic vision of the European viewer.

Attention is drawn to the tasks of the director’s vision and the audience’s reaction in displaying the themes of the East, which did not always coincide, leaving space for dialogue and the search for mutual understanding.

The novelty of the article lies in the reference to the history of criticism of the ballet The Red Poppy. Musicologists and theater critics actively reviewed the stage productions of the ballet to the music of R. M. Gliere. Programs from the pre-war fund of the National Library of Russia (1928–1933), published by various printing houses (Moscow, Leningrad, Baku, Vladivostok, Perm), contain reviews of The Red Poppy ballet. The texts of theater critics and servants (I. I. Sollertinsky, V. M. Bogdanov-Berezovsky, K. S. Faybushevich) preserved the style of ballet perception and reflected educational rhetoric. The corpus of theatrical brochures is united by the heading «To help the viewer». The article contains an analysis of the aesthetic didactics of popularizing forms of communication with the audience, and provides information from the archives of the Urals and the Far East.

The purpose of the article is to present a chronological systematic review of the performances of the ballet The Red Poppy (1927–1933), including in regional theaters, which makes it possible to highlight the stage impact of the ballet on the audience, to understand the search for a new plastic language of choreography.

The article continues the publications devoted to the first Saint Petersburg-Leningrad ballet school classical dance curriculums. The study focuses on the materials of the Leningrad choreographic school 1938–1940 curriculums found in the Saint Petersburg Central State Archive of Literature and Art (coll. 259, Vaganova Ballet Academy collection), Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Musical Art (coll. 242, A. Vaganova collection), and Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (coll. 962, Soviet of Ministers’ Arts Committee collection). Copies of the archival curriculums contain handwritten notes by A. Vaganova, which provide a particular area of interest for the research. The transcript of the 1938 discussion on the revision of the high school ballet curriculum complements the picture of the changes introduced in the classical dance lesson. A comparative analysis with the earlier curriculums of the Saint Petersburg-Leningrad Ballet School allows us to evaluate the dynamics of the evolution of classical dance technique.

The article analyzes the experience of choreographic embodiments (interpretations) fairy tales by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King on the ballet stage at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st centuries. The analysis is based on the methodology of choreographic interpretation of literary sources, used by some Russian researchers, and the concept of interpretation of choreographic text. Scientific analysis in art involves the use of one of three approaches: strategic, methodological, interpretive, or a combination thereof. All of them are analyzed in the article from the point of view of ballet studies and touch on various versions of the ballet The Nutcracker created in recent decades. The prospect of research in this direction is represented by the development of modern ballet science, which studies new theatrical productions and interpretations of well-known classical plots on the choreographic stage of the 21st century.

The article examines the Holy liturgy in the Ossetian language by the composer Anisim Dzattiaty in the light of the development of the Christian liturgical tradition of the Ossetians. Currently, this tradition, which is based on the practice of the Russian Orthodox Church, includes samples that have a local (on the territory of Ossetia) distribution and the original nature of the musical intonation component. In this context, the above work is of particular interest as the first one created by Ossetian authors, covering the entire order of rites.

To study the work, methods of field research, source study, literary and musical analysis were used. As a result of the work carried out, the connection between the Holy liturgy... and the Russian Orthodox singing culture, on the one hand, and the folk musical creativity of Ossetians, on the other, was revealed; the cyclical nature of the work has been proven and the possibility of its implementation within the framework of worship has been substantiated.

The article attempts to identify the origins of actors’ specific status in modern theater and society. In parallel with the process of the director-centered theater formation in the late 18th and the early 19th, a new actor’s status was forming beyond directing. Development of a role on stage into the role in life is demonstrated by the example of the greatest actresses of that time, Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, Ida Rubinstein. At the same time, each of the outstanding actresses develops her own way of acting based on specific artistic models.

The article examines the experience of the existence of the works of the Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi on the Soviet stage of the 1930s and 1940s, when the theater was under strict censorship and under ideological control. Despite attempts at government restrictions, Gozzi still penetrated the Soviet scene, most often in newly emerging theaters. It was then that the version of the stage interpretation of the fiab was established, as fairy tales for children. This way of existence of the Venetian’s works, which began during a time of many restrictions, quickly gained a clear vector of extravaganza, conviviality, and musicality. Oriented towards a children’s audience, the experience of theatrical productions based on fiabs is rooted in the tradition of the Soviet stage. It also manifests itself in modern domestic performances based on Gozzi’s plays, although it has ceased to be a universal stage key to their poetics. The article examines this trend using the example of three performances: “The Green Bird” by B. V. Zona (Leningrad Youth Theater, 1935), “The Deer King” by S. V Obraztsov and V. A. Gromov (GATSTK, 1943) and “The Raven” by P. K. Weisbrem (Leningrad Youth Theater, 1946).

The article presents the analysis of Mikhail Vrubel’s ceramic sculptures which were inspired by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas The Snow Maiden and Sadko in 1899-1900s. The synthetic character of Vrubel’s artworks is studied, as well as the peculiarities of addressing literary subjects that received a new embodiment in the theater world. Attention is paid to the influence of home performances of the Abramtsevo circle on the formation of the artist’s interests, including participation in the creation of a theatrical performance The Snow Maiden. The theatrical activity of the artist in the Private Opera of Savva Mamontov is considered, possible ways of influence on his work are given. The article traces the ways of appealing to folk art and folklore, which were used by the artist Mikhail Vrubel and composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in the creation of their works. The paper presents details of the interaction between Vrubel and Rimsky-Korsakov, and reveals the characteristic features of the artist’s sculptural suites.

The article contains an analysis of the metatheatrical component in the play L’Alouette based on the inquisition process of Joan of Arc. In this intricately structured dramatic text, metatheatrical aesthetics are realized in the form of a performance within a judicial process: the story of Joan represents her testimony in court and a performance in which historical characters participate. Being typical of metatheatricality, the interweaving and blending of performance and reality, is unusually tied not to the theater, but to the courtroom. It appears that this innovation is the invention of Jean Anouilh, who frequently explored metatheatricality in his plays. It is also interesting to note that the grammatical category of time in the characters’ lines influences the relationship between performance and reality. The article also examines the connection between the court and the theater, as the former borrows many elements from the latter: costumes, the order of lines, and the performative aspect. The inherent theatricality of the judicial process adds an additional dimension to the metatheatricality to the play.

Yuri (Georgy) Georgievich Bildstein (1887−1947), who often performed under the pseudonym Van Oren, was an outstanding Russian cellist and viola da gamba player, as well as a teacher, organizer, and composer. One of his main achievements was the creation of the first Ensemble of ancient instruments in Russia (1913−1922). This page of Russian musical history is almost forgotten. This article, based on numerous materials from the Russian press and other documents, for the first time recreates the basic facts of Bildstein’s biography and activities before the February Revolution of 1917.

The article is devoted to the premiere performances of two famous St. Petersburg choreographers. These are The Pour Bride by Maria Bolshakova at the Chelyabinsk Opera and Ballet Theater and Iakinf by Alexander Polubentsev at the Kazan Opera and Ballet Theater named after Musa Jalil. The Pour Bride is based on the famous drama by A. N. Ostrovsky. Iakinf is the story of the amazing fate of the scientist-monk Nikita Bichurin, Father Hyacinth (Iakinf), who discovered China to Russia. Analysis of ballets reveals the originality of artistic solutions of performances while observing the genre principles of choreodrama. Clear, dramatically intense action, psychologically reliable images of the heroes are embodied with the help of pantomime scenes and all kinds of dance forms — solo, ensemble, mass. In both ballets original librettos, music and choreography form an artistically significant narrative about the pressing problems of human existence.