This book explores the immense influence of the composer Richard Wagner on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian writers, musicians and artists. It contains a history of the production of Wagner's works in Russia and the Soviet Union (by directors including Meyerhold and Eisenstein), an account of Wagner's visit to Russia in 1863, and a detailed investigation of the impact of his music and ideas on the Russian Modernist movement. The last two chapters explore the fate of Wagner's works after the 1917 Revolution, when he was first hailed but then reviled, and finally rehabilitated during...

This book explores the immense influence of the composer Richard Wagner on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian writers, musicians and artists. It contains a history of the production of Wagner's works in Russia and the Soviet Union (by directors including Meyerhold and Eisenstein), an account of Wagner's visit to Russia in 1863, and a detailed investigation of the impact of his music and ideas on the Russian Modernist movement. The last two chapters explore the fate of Wagner's works after the 1917 Revolution, when he was first hailed but then reviled, and finally rehabilitated during...

The futurist opera Victory Over the Sun--written by Aleksei Kruchenykh and first performed in St. Petersburg in December 1913--was central to the Russian avant-garde, important for its libretto, its fragmentary, modernistic score, and its innovative sets and costumes. This book features an excellent translation of the text, accompanied by a number of essays from international contributors such as Laurence Senelick and John E. Bowlt that offer new insights into the practice and history of Russian theater in the first half of the twentieth century.