FROM CRISIS TO STASIS: DEPICTING HISTORY IN CZECH OPERA AFTER 1948

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F23%3A10477968" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/23:10477968 - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=42JJnxNJX7" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=42JJnxNJX7</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.54759/MUSICOLOGY-2023-0104" target="_blank" >10.54759/MUSICOLOGY-2023-0104</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

FROM CRISIS TO STASIS: DEPICTING HISTORY IN CZECH OPERA AFTER 1948

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

Every time the Czech nationhood has appeared to be threatened, stage (re) interpretations of national history have been produced with renewed urgency. This was the case after the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the following Nazi occupation, and again after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968. In this article, I engage with the ways motives and themes used to raise national awareness in these times of crisis were naturalized, or neutralized, to serve the cultural politics of state socialism in the decades that followed, and especially the period of &quot;normalization&quot; in the 1970s and 1980s. I focus on two contemporary operas on historical themes that were produced at the Prague National Theatre in relation to its centenary celebrations: Zuzana Vojirova by Jiri Pauer (NT 1959 and 1981) and Mistr Jeronym by Ivo Jirasek (NT 1984). They both help demonstrate the paradoxical demand for grand themes from national history on the one hand, and absence of concrete meaning on the other. I argue that Zuzana Vojirova ultimately served the political needs of &quot;normalization&quot; much better than Mistr Jeronym. Pauer&apos;s &quot;folk opera&quot; used traditional dramaturgy and conventionalized musical means and capitalized on the popularity of its subject matter during World War II. With its romanticized depiction of the past and generic form of nationalism, it could be consumed as a politically neutral and &quot;timeless&quot; product of high culture. Mistr Jeronym proved much more controversial, due to its ambiguous depiction of the eponymous Hussite hero as well as its modernist music. The libretto was written by the blacklisted poet Karel Siktanc, a fact that remained well hidden at the time. Like Zuzana Vojirova, Mistr Jeronym was discursively framed through references to World War II, which worked to suppress the more recent historical parallels the opera could evoke (e.g., to the self-immolation of the Czech student Jan Palach in protest of the 1968 invasion). While the opera thus carried a certain subversive potential, I suggest that it was so obscured as to effectively become unreadable to contemporary audiences.

Název v anglickém jazyce

FROM CRISIS TO STASIS: DEPICTING HISTORY IN CZECH OPERA AFTER 1948

Popis výsledku anglicky

Every time the Czech nationhood has appeared to be threatened, stage (re) interpretations of national history have been produced with renewed urgency. This was the case after the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the following Nazi occupation, and again after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968. In this article, I engage with the ways motives and themes used to raise national awareness in these times of crisis were naturalized, or neutralized, to serve the cultural politics of state socialism in the decades that followed, and especially the period of &quot;normalization&quot; in the 1970s and 1980s. I focus on two contemporary operas on historical themes that were produced at the Prague National Theatre in relation to its centenary celebrations: Zuzana Vojirova by Jiri Pauer (NT 1959 and 1981) and Mistr Jeronym by Ivo Jirasek (NT 1984). They both help demonstrate the paradoxical demand for grand themes from national history on the one hand, and absence of concrete meaning on the other. I argue that Zuzana Vojirova ultimately served the political needs of &quot;normalization&quot; much better than Mistr Jeronym. Pauer&apos;s &quot;folk opera&quot; used traditional dramaturgy and conventionalized musical means and capitalized on the popularity of its subject matter during World War II. With its romanticized depiction of the past and generic form of nationalism, it could be consumed as a politically neutral and &quot;timeless&quot; product of high culture. Mistr Jeronym proved much more controversial, due to its ambiguous depiction of the eponymous Hussite hero as well as its modernist music. The libretto was written by the blacklisted poet Karel Siktanc, a fact that remained well hidden at the time. Like Zuzana Vojirova, Mistr Jeronym was discursively framed through references to World War II, which worked to suppress the more recent historical parallels the opera could evoke (e.g., to the self-immolation of the Czech student Jan Palach in protest of the 1968 invasion). While the opera thus carried a certain subversive potential, I suggest that it was so obscured as to effectively become unreadable to contemporary audiences.

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

60403 - Performing arts studies (Musicology, Theater science, Dramaturgy)

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Rok uplatnění

2023

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Hudební věda

ISSN

0018-7003

e-ISSN

2694-6998

Svazek periodika

60

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

1

Stát vydavatele periodika

CZ - Česká republika

Počet stran výsledku

20

Strana od-do

49-68

Kód UT WoS článku

001098474400006

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85162259068