Rossiysky Θeatr

The project investigates operatic life across the territories of the Russian Empire from the 1730s to 1836 — from the documented beginnings of operatic activity in the Empire to the staging of Mikhail Glinka's Zhizn' za tsarya (A Life for the Tsar), a conventional boundary in music historiography.

A central aim is to recover continuity across that historiographical boundary, rejecting teleological narratives and distinctions based on national or ethnic criteria, while the geographical frame follows the historical borders of the Empire. Cultural life is examined in its multiethnic and multilingual dimensions, without celebratory or nationalistic framing.

The chronological scope takes in a theatrical landscape in which Italian, French, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and other traditions shared stages, personnel, and repertoire. The project documents this activity systematically, from primary sources.

The project's primary output is an open-access digital archive describing theatrical stagings that took place within the Empire's borders during the target period. The archive brings together sources and documents in Russian, Italian, French, Polish, German, Ukrainian, and these languages’ combinations to provide a systematic account of theatrical activity across this multilingual territory.

The archive is being developed in phases. In the first phase, the project surveys operatic titles performed on — or conceived for — the stages of the Russian Empire, across a wide range of genres and subgenres:

• dramma giocoso
• opera seria
• dramma per musica
• opera comica
• opera buffa
• opéra comique
• Singspiel
• opera komicheskaya
• drama
• drama na muzïke

Each performance is treated as a discrete item and linked to its authors (librettists, composers, and other relevant figures), place, date, venue, and the sources that attest those data. Ballets conceived as independent works, not connected to operas, are currently outside the project's scope.

A subsequent phase surveys and describes specific materials documenting the production or planned performance of these titles.

The planned documentary corpus covers a broad range of primary materials:

Librettos

Printed and manuscript librettos in all relevant languages

Scores

Manuscript and printed period scores; vocal scores and piano reductions

Parts

Cembalist parts, separate orchestral parts, and individual vocal parts/roles

Visual sources

Stage set designs and theatre playbills

Press

Advertisements, reviews, and chronicles from contemporary periodicals

Personal documents

Memoirs and correspondence bearing on theatrical life

The project is based at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Verona. The website is developed in collaboration with the project team and associated researchers.

External components